UN Report on Poverty

The UN report on poverty, which highlights the situation of the poor and statistics on poverty, is satisfactory in so far as it maintains that from 1981 to 2005, the number of people living in abject poverty has shrunk by about 500 million. The problem to accept the report per se is that the measurement of poverty it has adopted is $1.25 or less, implying that people whose daily income is $1.25 or less are poor people. If one has a look at the ever increasing prices of essential commodities, particularly food articles, the UN criteria for poverty does not present the true picture of those living below the poverty line.

Standard of Living
The international report released in New Delhi recently claims that during the last two-and-half decades, the number of people living below the poverty line in the world has reduced by 500 million. In India, the report maintains that during 1981, 62.5 percent of population living in rural areas was poor which the average in urban areas was 51 percent. It further states that by 2005, the population of poor people residing in urban areas came down to 36.2 percent. Undoubtedly, statistics presented in the report on India are heartening.
One can, specifically, draw solace and satisfaction from the fact that India is a democracy, which is only 60 years old, and which has the second largest population in the world, has brought down the poverty graph to such an extent within only 25 years. Yet, the poverty graph in rural India has not come down as it has in urban India. It is despite the fact that India is predominantly a rural country where a larger chunk of its population continues to live in villages. As long as that large number of people is not brought up above the poverty line and their standard of living improved, making India a prosperous country would remain a far cry.

Difference Between Rural and Urban Areas
One can draw the conclusion from the difference between rural and urban areas that agriculture and rural industries could not get the same place of pride in the industrial, commercial, and agrarian policies which was their due. Our farmers continue to face innumerable challenges even to this day. It is strange that while food prices are soaring farmers fail to get the remunerative price for his produce. A positive aspect of statistics present in the report is that while there was the difference of 11.5 percent of poverty between urban and rural areas in 1981 that difference was reduced to 7.6 percent in 2005. It implies that the number of people who crossed the below poverty line status to above it was higher in rural areas than in the urban. Yet, in a country like India where a larger number of people continue to depend on agriculture, there is the need to pay greater attention to it.
Yet, another significant aspect of the report relates to the fixation of the criteria for the below poverty line anew. The standard or the criterion for the poverty at present is $1.25 a day. Those who do not earn as much are considered people who are living below the poverty line. Yet, the amount is not even sufficient to provide a square meal to a family. The family cannot get a shelter and purchase clothes for them with that meager amount of the daily income. Second, in those countries where the price rise is higher than that of India, this meager income is not even enough for a person to get a square meal a day. Which is why economists the world over are debating the issue on the level of the below poverty line or what should be the standard criteria for it.

Deciding Level of Income
The report, therefore, suggests that the criterion for deciding the level of income for poverty needs to be fixed afresh. There is no need to say that if the criterion of the poverty and the current price rise the world over are reviewed, the picture of poverty, as reported, may undergo a huge change. The report admits that between 1981 and 2005, the number of the poverty stricken people has come down and at the same time, social security has come down as well. It also admits that inequality has further widened. One wonders why the schism between the rich and the poor continues to get widened despite the number of the poor has come down. One wonders that possibility; the increasing schism is caused by the inequality behind the economic progress. If it is so, we would have to revisit the standard and criteria of the economic progress.
The United Nations, instead of adopting these misleading criteria for the economic development, adopt a more reasonable and balanced view and show the world that path of economic policy which may help in reducing and, ultimately, control the ever increasing schism between the rich and the poor.