PANDEMIC POVERTY AND ITS CAUSES IN INDIA

The word poverty itself kind of making me feel poor. Because that one word alone hold so much pain, sympathy, empathy and so on. Then think about the people who are suffering from poverty. The country we live in is known to be well developing nation with respectable economic growth. But at the same time the poverty is still a major problem.

Especially during this pandemic poverty has hit people in different ways. Middle and lower class people who has managed to survive at the start of the pandemic have completely lost their will to survive in the end. We even heard of some sensitive news that people died of covid not being able to get treated without any access to money. Still some people couldnt able to get food and shelter.

WHAT IS POVERTY?

Poverty refers to a situation when people are deprived of basic needs of life. It is often characterized by inadequacy of food, shelter and clothes. A state of situation when there is a lack of essential needs of subsistence. The study of poverty is a complex one because there is no easy way, or standard definition of who is poor or who is not. The living conditions of people has been widely used to get an idea of their situation. It is situation when someone experience a fundamental loss in well being.

According to Human Rights Commission’s Report, Poverty is seen “As a failure to meet the basic needs or to remain deprived from such needs is a state of poverty. The basic human need include not only food, clothing and dwelling, but also health and education’.

CAUSES:

The continuous problem of poverty in the country is the results of many factors and need to be identified in order to be addressed properly.

1. POPULATION BURDEN:

The growth of population in the country has till now exceeded the growth of economy and also ended up in poverty. India is known to be second most populated country in the world. But this Covid-19 has taken many lives that even may be our loved ones. In this pandemic, in rural areas, size of the family is bigger and that means in lowering the per capita income values and ultimately lowering of standard of living. Still the population is one of the major causes of poverty.

2. POOR AGRICULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE:

Agriculture is the backbone of India and Indian economy. But old farming practices, lack of proper irrigation infrastructure, lack of knowledge of crop handling has affected the productivity. Sometimes lack of working lead to decreased wages become the reason for attaining daily needs of the labourers family pushing them into poverty. Pandemic have locked us all inside the home. But for the farmers they are being seperated from their soul, their farming land which feeds them and also us.

3. UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF ASSETS:

This occurs with the economy changing directions rapidly. Upper and middle income groups sees a faster increase in earnings than lower income groups. Also assets like cattle, land are distributed disproportionately among the population. In India it is said that 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population.

4. UNEMPLOYMENT: 

Another big factor which is the cause of poverty in the country. Many youngsters without the job become the major cause of the poverty. Work from home for the people with jobs sounds good to earn and feed their family but what about the people who are unemployed. Even before the covid there were no proper jobs for youngster in the nation.

5. INFLATION:

Inflation is an increase in prices of goods overlapping with the fall in the purchasing value of money. After the long lockdown, the Government has permitted to open the particular stores. This made the consumers to sell the products with a little higher price. Upper and middle class people have survived the situation but lower class people have suffered a lot.

5. EDUCATION AND LITERACY:

Online classes have  become the normal classes. In rural areas, families have managed to provide their child or children the proper education. But not all have enough money to provide their kids education some only have enough resources to feed their children. They have to prefer food than education. Children started to contribute to families by taking up the jobs. On the other hand, lack of education and illiteracy prevent individuals from getting better paying jobs and they get stuck at jobs offering minimum wages.

7. LACK OF SKILLED LABOURS:

Lack of adequate vocational training makes the huge labour force available in India largely unskilled. Lack of education, much lesser higher education is also a factor.

8.GENDER INEQUALITY:

The weak status attached with women, deep rooted social criticism and force fitting, being dominated renders about 50% of the country’s population unable to work. The women of the family as a dependent that needs to be fed instead of contributing to the family income. There is no need to talk about their equality during this situation.

The pandemic also brought out many good wills to help the people suffering from poverty. Its all in the hands of future generation to create a poverty less nation. We are not talking about to give away all your money to poor but just one hand helping another hand. Stay away from corruption.