Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development

Poverty eradication is one of the major objectives of planned development. The magnitude of the problem is still quite staggering. Thirty six per cent of the Indian population was below the poverty line (BPL) in 1993-94, the latest year for which the data are available and the absolute number of poor was 320 million, out of which 244 million (37 per cent of the rural population) lived in rural areas. The incidence of poverty declined from 54.9 per cent in 1973-74 to 36 per cent in 1993-94. But the absolute number of poor did not decline much over this period of 20 years. There were 321 million poor in 1973-74 and 320 million in 1993-94; in the rural areas the corresponding numbers were 261 million and 244 million.

The main determinants of poverty are

(i)    Lack of income and purchasing power attributable to lack of productive employment and considerable underemployment and not to lack of employment,

(ii)   A continuous increase in the price of food, especially food grains, which account for 70-80 percent of the consumption basket,

(iii)   Inadequacy of social infrastructure, affecting the quality of life of the people and their employability.

Poverty is the state of human beings who are poor. That is, they have little or no material means of surviving—little or no food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and other physical means of living and improving one’s life. CID addresses the determinant calling approaches allied poverty. There are various schemes running by GOI, but we found either these schemes are not reaching to people or lack of will of political and administrative approaches which become a huge barrier and increasing the gap among people of different social-economically. GDP and per capita indicate the improving economic status of the country, but on the other hands reality says poor becoming poorer and rich becoming richer. The politics of economics have many faces, but any of dimensions is not addressing the people really need. Some schemes ran by GOI which is formally made to address the livelihood of people,

• National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS)
• National family Benefit Scheme (NFBS)
• National Maternity Benefit Scheme
• Annapurna
• Integrated Rural Development program
• Rural Housing-Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY)
• National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

Therefore 10 years before, CID executes a project FHF (Freedom from Hunger and Fear) with the support of Action Aid India, which directs to villagers and aadiwasis to deal with poverty issues. CID opened the support center in selected block which used to help people to get advantage of GOI scheme. CID spread awareness of land rights and ensures Sahariya tribal and other poor class of villagers are rehabilitated and recompensed under the Forest Resources Act, Create an organization of the tribal community and strengthen it to combat injustice and lobby for their civic, political and economic rights and eradicate poverty and injustice towards vulnerable people focusing especially on women’s issues and child rights.

Agriculture is considered the backbone of the village economy. In support with CIDA, CID develops a watershed model in a few villages of block colors so that agriculture becomes feasible to people.