Actions required to address the above issues

More Citizen participation

• • Without the active participation of the poor, successful implementation of any programme is not possible
  • Poverty can effectively be eradicated only when the poor start contributing to growth by their active involvement in the growth process.
    • This is possible through a process of social mobilisation, encouraging poor people to participate to get them empowered

Accelerating Economic Growth

• • • While efforts should be made to accelerate economic growth, the use of capital-intensive technologies imported from the Western Countries should be avoided
      • Instead, we should pursue labour-intensive path of economic growth.
      • Such monetary and fiscal policies should be adopted that provide incentives for using labour-intensive techniques

Agricultural Growth and Poverty Alleviation

• • The higher agricultural growth leads to lower poverty ratio. The expe­rience of Punjab and Haryana has confirmed this inverse relation between agriculture growth and poverty.
    • It is also true that, all India level employment generated by new green revolution technology has been cancelled out by increasing mechanisation of agricultural operations in various parts of a country
    • Thus, in the light of the finding of zero employment elasticity of agricultural output, positive impact of agricultural growth on the incomes of small farmers and, more particularly on the wage income of agricultural labourers, cannot be denied
    • Hence, the need to balance between the two aspects
  • Also, there is need to increase public investment in infrastructure and ensure adequate access to credit to the small farmers

Accelerating Human Resource Development

• • Focus on Education, Health and Skill development, not only generates a good deal of employment opportunities but also raises productivity and income of the poor
  • Hence, the need of efficient implementation of schemes like Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) etc, going forward

Growth of Non-Farm Employment

• • For reduction of poverty, growth of non-farm employ­ment in the rural areas is of special importance.
  • Non-farm employment can be created in marketing (i.e., petty trade), transportation, handicrafts, dairying, and forestry, processing of food and other agricultural products, repair workshops, etc.

Providing access to more Assets to vulnerable sections

• • Rapid growth of population after independence has led to greater sub- di­vision and fragmentation of agricultural holdings, and this has resulted in lack of employment opportunities for agricultural labourers
  • Redistribution of land through effective measures, such as implementation of tenancy reforms so as to ensure security of tenure and fixation of fair rent could be an important measure of reducing rural poverty

Poverty alleviation has always been accepted as one of India’s main challenges by the policy makers

• There is improvement in terms of per capita income and average standard of living; even though some progress towards meeting the basic needs has been made; But when compared to the progress made by many other countries, our performance has not been impressive
• Hence, the need of actions to enable the fruits of development to reach all sections of the population