Poverty and Developmental Issues

Poverty as a social issue

The GS Paper 1 syllabus lists "poverty and developmental issues" under Indian society, while GS Paper 3 covers the economics of poverty. In GS1 the focus is on the social face of poverty: who is poor and why, how caste, gender, tribe and region shape deprivation, and how development itself can create new problems such as displacement and inequality. Poverty is not just low income – it means poor health, little education, insecure work, unsafe housing, social exclusion and lack of voice. Amartya Sen describes it as a deprivation of capabilities, the real freedoms people have to live the lives they value.

Types and concepts

• Absolute poverty – income or consumption below a fixed minimum needed for survival.
• Relative poverty – being poor compared with others in the same society.
• Chronic vs transient poverty – long-term versus temporary, such as after a crop failure or illness.
• Multidimensional poverty – deprivation in health, education and living standards at the same time.
• International poverty line – the World Bank raised it from $2.15 to $3.00 a day (2021 PPP) in June 2025.

Measuring poverty in India

NITI Aayog estimates that about 24.8 crore people escaped multidimensional poverty between 2013–14 and 2022–23. The Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys of 2022–23 and 2023–24 also suggest that extreme poverty has fallen sharply; the World Bank estimated India's extreme poverty at about 5.3 per cent in 2022–23 under the new $3 line. Experts still debate the methods, and India has had no official income-poverty line since 2011–12.

Who is poor: the social map

• Regional: poverty is concentrated in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Meghalaya, which have the highest MPI shares; Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu have the lowest.
• Caste and tribe: Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes are much more likely to be poor because of landlessness, discrimination, remote locations and lower access to education. About half of ST households were multidimensionally poor in 2015–16 (NFHS-4 based MPI).
• Gender: women-headed households, widows and single women face higher risk; women's unpaid work hides their contribution.
• Rural vs urban: rural poverty is higher, but urban poverty is growing in slums, with insecure informal jobs and poor housing.
• Occupational: agricultural labourers, marginal farmers, casual workers, artisans and street vendors.
• Disability and age: persons with disabilities and the elderly without pensions.

Causes of poverty

1. Historical – colonial de-industrialisation, high land revenue and famines.
2. Agrarian distress – tiny holdings, rain-fed farming, low productivity, debt and price volatility.
3. Jobless growth and informality – about 90 per cent of workers are in the informal sector without social security.
4. Social exclusion – caste discrimination, gender norms and the marginalisation of tribal communities.
5. Human capital gaps – poor-quality schooling, malnutrition and high out-of-pocket health spending, which pushes millions into poverty each year.
6. Regional imbalances – poor infrastructure and governance in some states.
7. Shocks – disasters, illness, climate change and pandemics (COVID-19 pushed many back into poverty temporarily).

Developmental issues

Development has brought rising incomes, but it has also raised social questions:

• Inequality: the top 10 per cent hold a large and rising share of income and wealth (World Inequality Lab estimates), even as extreme poverty falls; consumption inequality measured by the Gini coefficient has been estimated at about 0.25–0.26 in 2022–23, but income and wealth inequality are much higher.
• Displacement: dams, mines, industries and highways have displaced an estimated 6–6.5 crore people since independence, a large share of them tribals. The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR) requires consent, social impact assessment and fair compensation.
• Development vs environment: movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Medha Patkar) and the Niyamgiri campaign questioned who pays the cost of growth.
• Jobless growth and the rise of the gig and platform economy with weak protections; the Code on Social Security (2020) recognises gig workers for the first time.
• Regional disparity: the gap between richer southern and western states and poorer northern and eastern states.

Policies against poverty

Evaluating the approach

India's anti-poverty strategy has shifted from trickle-down growth in the early decades, through targeted programmes in the 1970s–80s (IRDP, Garibi Hatao), to a rights-based approach (right to work, food, education, information) in the 2000s and a focus on universal basic services and DBT since 2014. The challenges now are quality jobs, nutrition, learning outcomes, urban poverty, climate risk and ensuring that welfare reaches the most excluded groups. Debates also continue on freebies versus welfare and on a possible universal basic income, proposed in the Economic Survey 2016–17.

Poverty, nutrition and the next generation

Poverty passes from one generation to the next mainly through nutrition, health and schooling. A child born into a poor family is more likely to be underweight at birth, to be stunted by the age of five, to attend a weaker school and to leave early for work, so the cycle repeats. NFHS-5 found 35.5 per cent of children under five stunted, 19.3 per cent wasted and 32.1 per cent underweight, with much higher rates among ST and SC children and in the poorest wealth quintile. The ASER surveys show that many children in Class 5 still cannot read a Class 2 text, though learning has recovered since the pandemic.

Breaking this cycle is why programmes such as POSHAN Abhiyaan (2018), the PM POSHAN mid-day meal, Saksham Anganwadi, rice fortification, and foundational literacy and numeracy under the NIPUN Bharat mission are seen as anti-poverty measures, not just welfare. The idea is captured by the phrase "inclusive growth": growth must raise the incomes and capabilities of the bottom groups, not only the national average. Social audits, gram sabhas and the Right to Information Act (2005) help the poor hold the system accountable, as shown by the social audit model of MGNREGA in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Mains practice question

"Poverty in India has a distinct social face." Examine how caste, gender and region shape poverty, and evaluate the shift towards multidimensional measures and rights-based welfare. (250 words)

Answer framework

• Intro: capability approach; MPI 11.28% (2022–23).
• Social face: SC/ST, women-headed households, BIMARU states, urban informal.
• Causes: agrarian, informality, exclusion, health costs.
• Policies: rights-based (MGNREGA, NFSA), basic services, DBT, aspirational districts.
• Conclusion: from poverty to vulnerability; jobs and human capital.