Independent India paid due attention to the problem of poverty and undertook many measures and launched many schemes, programs and projects for the upliftment of the poor.
ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMMES
Some of the poverty alleviation programs launched from time to time by the government are discussed below-
. INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (IRDA) 1978-79
. DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN RURAL AREAS (DWACRA) 1979
. NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM (NREP)
. RURAL LANDLESS EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE PROGRAM (RLEGP)
. JAWAHAR ROZGAR YOJANA (IRY) 1989
. DROUGHT PRONE AREAS PROGRAM (DPAP) (1972-73)
. TRAINING OF RURAL YOUTH FOR SELF- EMPLOYMENT (TRYSE) 1979
. SWARNJAYANTI GRAM SWAROJGAR YOJANA (PMRY) 1993
.NATIONAL FOOD FOR WORK PROGRAM (NFWP) 2004
. PRADHAN MANTRI GRAM SADAK YOJANA 2000
HEALTH EXPENDITURE AND IMPOVERISHMENT IN INDIA
At the national level, 10.1 per cent of rural households as against 6.2 per cent of urban households have either become poor or poorer as a consequence of OOP for Healthcare. The proportion of rural impoverished households due to OOP health expenditure in the four most underdeveloped states of Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are 11.4, 9.5, 7.9 and 7.3 per cents, respectively. The corresponding proportion of urban impoverished households for these states is 7.2, 7.5, 5.9 and 5.1 per cents, respectively. It is also that the OOP (Out-of-Pocket) payment tends to increase significantly with inequality in income distribution and shortage of physicians at the state level. Health System inadequacy measure by population density per physician has escalating effect on impoverishment.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE DETERMINANTS OF POVERTY IN INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA
India and South Africa are two very different nations; however both experience sizeable issues with poverty. In 2011, 21.2 percent of India’s population lived below $1.90 per day poverty line. In the same year, 16.6 percent of South Africa’s population lived below $1.90 per day. Both Nations India and South Africa have factors include education, healthcare and economic opportunity. Both India and South Africa have taken actions to mitigate poverty.
Unlike India, South Africa experienced a major setback in their life expectancy between 1992 and 2005 due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their life expectancy peaked in 1992 at 62.3 years, before failing and eventually bottoming out at 52.6 years in 2005. In 2016, South African men had a life expectancy of 59.2 years, while women had a life expectancy of 66.4 years. This is a difference compared to India, where women lived only 3.1 years longer than men in 2016. In South Africa, the gap in life expectancies between genders has not changed over time in India, with men living 1.1 years longer than women in 1970.
Both nations have seen improvements in their adult literacy rates, through the improvements have been more limited in South Africa than in India. In 1980, South Africa had a literacy rate of 76.2 percent and ended at 94.4 percent in 2015. India’s literacy has been substantially lower than South Africa’s throughout this time.
Major social factors in both India and South Africa have shaped their present societies. These factors have contributed to poverty in these two nations and have also shaped their present societies. These factors have contributed to poverty in these two nations and have also shaped how both have responded to reduce their poverty levels. Past Events in both nations have made large segments of the population’s susceptible to poverty.
Poverty is worsened by the relatively high level of income inequality in both nations. While income inequality is a separate issue in both India and especially South Africa, extreme levels of income inequality can contribute to poverty by influencing social, spatial and political factors. Increased inequality influences what people view as the qualities of success, separates the wealthy from the poor (making them unaware of poverty by influencing social, spatial and political factors. One of the key measures of inequality is the GINI coefficient. GINI coefficient ranges from 0 to 100 percent, 0 being no inequality and 100 being complete inequality. In 2011, India had a GINI Coefficient of 63.4 percent, giving it one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world.
Poverty is also disproportionately rural in both India and South Africa. According to World Bank (2018) data, the percent of the rural population in India that lived below the national poverty line (not the $1.90 extreme poverty line) was 25.7 percent in 2011. In contrast, the percentage of the urban population living below the line was 13.7 percent. In 2005, 87.6 percent of South Africa’s rural population lived below the national poverty line while 52 percent of the urban population lived below the line.
Clearly a much larger section of South Africa’s population is considered to live below the poverty line. However, the disparity between the prevalence of poverty between urban and rural areas in both nations is evident. In addition to the rural-urban differences, there are different levels of poverty between Indian States and South African Municipalities.
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