Poverty Alleviation - Programmes And Policies (UPSC Notes)

Below Poverty Line (BPL) can be defined as an economic benchmark used in the identification of economically weaker people and households. BPL is set by the Government of India based on a threshold income. The households or individuals having an income below this threshold value are considered to be under the below poverty line.

Measuring BPL in India

 The poverty line solely depends on the per capita income in India rather than the level of prices. The poverty line is the minimum income required to purchase the basic goods and services that are essential to satisfy the basic human needs. The proportion of the population that is below this poverty line is called the poverty ratio or headcount ratio. Similar approaches are followed by most countries and international institutions for determining BPL. 

In India, the first official rural and urban poverty lines at the national level were introduced in 1979 by Y. K. Alagh Committee. Criteria for the measurement of BPL are different for the rural and urban areas. 

• Currently, according to the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the degree of deprivation is measured with the help of parameters with scores given from 0–4, with 13 parameters. 
• Families with 17 marks or less (formerly 15 marks or less) out of a maximum of 52 marks have been classified as BPL. 
• The poverty line is calculated every 5 years. According to the recent estimation based on inflation,  the threshold income should be more than Rs. 962 a month for urban areas and Rs 768 a month in rural areas i.e., above Rs. 32 a day in an urban area and above Rs. 26 a day in a rural area. 

Eleven Five Year Plans were launched to eradicate poverty in India. The list of these Five Year Plans that started in the year 1951 is given below:

• First Five Year Plan (1951- 1956): The plan focused mainly on agriculture and irrigation and aimed at achieving an all-round balanced development. 

• Second Five Year Plan (1956-1961): It focused on the growth of basic and heavy industries, expansion in employment opportunities, and an increase of 25 per cent in the national income.

• Third Five Year Plan (1961-1966): The  Chinese aggression (1962), Indo-Pak war (1965), and the severest drought led to the complete failure of the third five-year plan. It was replaced by three annual plans that continued from 1966 to 1969. 

• Fourth Five Year Plan (1966-1974): It aimed at increasing national income by 5.5 per cent, creating economic stability, reducing inequalities in income distribution, and achieving social justice with equality.

• Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-1979): This plan mainly focused on the removal of poverty (Garibi Hatao) and aimed in bringing larger sections of the poor masses above the poverty line. It also assured a minimum income of Rs. 40 per person per month calculated at 1972-73 prices. The plan was terminated in 1978 instead of (1979) when the Janata Government came to power.

• Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985): Removal of poverty was the main objective of the sixth five-year plan with a major focus on economic growth, elimination of unemployment, self-sufficiency in technology, and raising the lifestyles of the weaker sections of the society.

• Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90): The Seventh Five Year Plan aimed in improving the living standards of the poor with a significant reduction in the incidence of poverty.  

• Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97): This plan aimed at employment generation but later failed in achieving most of its targets.

• Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002): The ninth five-year plan focused on the areas of agriculture, employment, poverty, and infrastructure. 

• Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007): The tenth five-year plan aimed at the reduction of the poverty ratio from 26 per cent to 21 per cent by the year 2007 and also to help the children in completing five years of schooling by 2007. 

• Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012): The eleventh five-year plan targets towards reducing poverty by 10 percentage points, generating 7 crore new employment opportunities, and ensuring electricity connection to all villages. 

As per the 2011-2012 estimation by the Planning Commission of India, 25.7 % of the rural population was under the below-poverty line and for the urban areas, it was 13.7 %. The rate of poverty in the rural areas is comparatively higher than that in the urban areas due to the lack of proper infrastructure, insufficient food supply, and poor employment system. 

The major Poverty Alleviation Programmes that were developed with an initiative to eradicate poverty are mentioned in the table below:

List of Poverty Alleviation Programmes in India
Name of the Scheme/Programme	Year of Formation	Government Ministry	Objectives
Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)	1978	Ministry of Rural Development	To raise the families of identified target groups living below the poverty line through the development of sustainable opportunities for self-employment in the rural sector.
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana	1985	Ministry of Rural Development	To create housing units for everyone along with providing 13 lakh housing units to the rural areas. To provide loans at subsidized rates to the people. To augment wage employment opportunities to the households by providing employment on-demand and through specific guaranteed wage employment every year.
Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS)	15th August 1995	Ministry of Rural Development	To provide pensions to the senior citizens of India of 65 years or higher and living below the poverty line.  It provides a monthly pension of Rs.200 for those aged between 60-79 years and Rs.500 for people aged above 80 years.
National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS)	August 1995	Ministry of Rural Development	To provide a sum of Rs.20,000 to the beneficiary who will be the next head of the family after the death of its primary breadwinner.
Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY)	1st April 1999	Implemented by the Village Panchayats.	Developing the infrastructure of the rural areas which included connecting roads, schools, and hospitals.  To provide sustained wage employment to families belonging to the below poverty line.
Annapurna	1999-2000	Ministry of Rural Development	To provide 10 kg of free food grains to eligible senior citizens who are not registered under the National Old Age Pension Scheme.
Food for Work Programme	2000s	Ministry of Rural Development	It aims at enhancing food security through wage employment. Food grains are supplied to states free of cost, however, the supply of food grains from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns has been slow
Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY)	–	–	The main objective of the scheme continues to be the generation of wage employment, the creation of durable economic infrastructure in rural areas and the provision of food and nutrition security for the poor.
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)	2005	Ministry of Rural Development	The Act provides 100 days of assured employment every year to every rural household. One-third of the proposed jobs would be reserved for women. The central government will also establish National Employment Guarantee Funds.  Similarly, state governments will establish State Employment Guarantee Funds for implementation of the scheme. Under the programme, if an applicant is not provided employment within 15 days s/he will be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance.
National Food Security Mission	2007	Ministry of Agriculture	To increase production of rice, wheat, pulses and coarse cereals through area expansion and productivity enhancement in a sustainable manner in the identified districts of the country
National Rural Livelihood Mission	2011	Ministry of Rural Development	It evolves out of the need to diversify the needs of the rural poor and provide them with jobs with regular income on a monthly basis. Self Help groups are formed at the village level to help the needy
National Urban Livelihood Mission	2013	Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs	It focuses on organizing urban poor in Self Help Groups, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by ensuring easy access to credit
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana	2014	Ministry of Finance	It aimed at direct benefit transfer of subsidy, pension, insurance etc. and attained the target of opening 1.5 crore bank accounts. The scheme particularly targets the unbanked poor
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana	2015	Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship	It will focus on fresh entrants to the labour market, especially labour market and class X and XII dropouts
Saansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY)	2014	Ministry of Rural Development	To develop the institutional and physical infrastructure in three villages by 2019. The scheme aims to develop five ‘Adarsh Villages’ or ‘Model Villages’ by 2024.
Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana	2015	Ministry of Finance	The scheme provides life coverage to the poor and low-income sections of society. The scheme offers a maximum assured amount of Rs.2 lakhs
Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana	2015	Ministry of Finance	The scheme is an insurance policy to the people belonging to the underprivileged sections of the society
National Maternity Benefit Scheme	2016	Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW)	To provide a sum of Rs.6000 to a pregnant mother who is aged above 19 years.  The sum is provided normally 12–8 weeks before the birth in three instalments and can also be availed even after the death of the child.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)	2016	Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas	It envisages the distribution of 50 million LPG connections to women below the poverty line
Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY)	2016	Ministry of Finance	the scheme provides an opportunity to declare unaccounted wealth and black money in a confidential manner and avoid prosecution after paying a fine of 50% on the undisclosed income. An additional 25% of the undisclosed income is invested in the scheme which can be refunded after four years, without any interest.
Solar Charkha Mission	2018	Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME)	It aims at Employment generation for nearly one lakh people through solar charkha clusters in rural areas
National Nutrition Mission (NNM), Poshan Abhiyan	2018	Ministry of Women and Child Development	to reduce the level of undernutrition and also enhance the nutritional status of children in the country. Also, to improve the nutritional outcomes of adolescents, children, pregnant women and lactating mothers
Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan (PM-SYM)	2019	Ministry of Labour and Employment	It is a central government scheme that is introduced for old age protection and social security of Unorganised Workers (UW)
Prime Minister Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi – PM SVanidhi	2020	Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)	It aims to provide micro-credit facilities to street vendors affected by COVID-19 pandemic

Apart from eradicating poverty in India, the Poverty Alleviation Programmes also took the initiative to provide employment opportunities to the households of the BPL categories. 

Aspirants can go through the detailed information on various schemes mentioned above in the table below-

Pradhan Mantri SVANidhi Scheme	Solar Charkha Mission	Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana	Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, (MGNREGA)	National Food Security Act, 2013
National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)	DAY-NULM| National Urban Livelihood Mission	Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)
PMKVY – Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana	Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana – SAGY	Economic Empowerment of Weaker Sections
Prime Minister Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana	Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana	Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY
Prime Minister Ujjwala Plan	PM Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY)	National Nutrition Mission – Poshan Abhiyan
Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan	National Pension Scheme	Nai Roshni Scheme

Role of Public Distribution System in Poverty Alleviation

The Public Distribution System (PDS) which evolved as a system of management for food and distribution of food grains plays a major role in poverty alleviation. This programme is operated jointly by the Central Government and the State Government of India. The responsibilities include:

• Allocations of commodities such as rice, wheat, kerosene, and sugar to the States and Union Territories.
• Issue of Ration Cards for the people below the poverty line.
• Identification of families living below the poverty line.
• Management of food scarcity and distribution of food grains.

PDS was later relaunched as Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) in June 1997 and is controlled by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Government of India. TPDS plays a major role in the implementation and identification of the poor for proper arrangement and delivery of food grains. Therefore, the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) under the Government of India plays the same role as the PDS but adds a special focus on the people below the poverty line.

To know more about PDS and TPDS in India, refer to the linked page. 

The unemployment issue in India is considered as one of the major causes of poverty in India. The poverty rate of a country can be reduced with high economic growth and by reducing the unemployment problem. Various poverty alleviation programmes are set up under the Government of India that aim to eradicate poverty by providing employment on-demand and through specific guaranteed wage employment every year to households living below the poverty line. 

The generation of employment is important in poverty alleviation because of the following reasons:

• It will increase the income level of poor household families and will help in reducing the rate of poverty in the country. Hence, there is a significant relationship between unemployment and poverty. 
• It will decrease the rural-urban migration through the generation of employment programs in rural areas.
• An increase in the income level through the generation of employment programs will help the poor in accessing basic facilities including education, health facilities, and sanitation.