How can the ignorance of beneficiaries of poverty alleviation programmes be reduced?
Answers
Despite rapid growth and development, an unacceptably high proportion of our population continues to suffer from severe and multidimensional deprivation. It is not as if we are not mindful of this massive development challenge. The need to “end poverty, ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunity” was stressed in speeches during the Constituent Assembly meetings. It was recognised that “free India would be judged by the way it served the interests of the common people in terms of food, clothing, shelter and social services”. The day we attained Independence, Rajendra Prasad, the country’s first president, asked for a commitment “to create the conditions to enable each individual to develop and rise to their fullest stature, such that poverty, squalor, ignorance and ill-health would vanish, along with any distinction between high and low and between rich and poor”.
Concerns and commitments on reducing, ameliorating and eliminating poverty have been expressed repeatedly at the highest level. For instance, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a commitment to ensure that the “struggle for the removal of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease will register major gains in the Eleventh (five year) Plan”. More recently, a cabinet secretariat press note regarding constitution of the niti Aayog stated: “Poverty elimination remains one of the most important metrics by which alone we should measure our success as a nation.”
At the turn of the century, the Millennium Development Goals sought to “eliminate extreme poverty and hunger”. Today, the Sustainable Development Goals aim to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere”. Clearly, there is recognition at national and global levels of the importance of reducing or eliminating poverty. Yet, our report card on poverty remains dismal. What have we achieved and what do we need to do to achieve the elusive goal of ending poverty in India?