The previous units would have given you some ideas about health programmes as well as immunisation programmes in the counter, The quality of life of individuals would include social inputs as well as economic ones. Food, housing, education, health, sanitation are some of the items that go to determine the quality of life. Apart from the Government providing some or most of these services, people's ability to purchase goods and services, is important in determining people's command over goods and services. Hence income becomes a kind of index to measure how much of what commodities people can purchase. Now, the Government has to focus on the poorest people and most of the poorest people live in villages. Hence in this unit we will deal mainly with anti-poverty programmes, employment programmes, and income generation programmes for the rural poor.
Food and nutrition are basic to the survival of individuals. For a person to acquire food, as well as other goods and services like education, housing, there can be several methods. The person can buy these or perhaps the Government can provide these. There can be other ways too, like children getting food within the family. One way can often lead to another. For example, private systems of buying and selling can collapse during a drought or famine and the Government has to step in to provide food. Whichever way the person acquires food and the other basic need items like education and health, there is no getting away from the fact that basic needs form important elements of individual and social development and capabilities.
An important way to acquire food and health services is to acquire them in exchange for money out of one's income. Hence having a source of income acquires importance. People can get income out of some asset, or work on their own, for themselves, or hire out their labour to someone else.
For poorer people, who typically own little to no assets, employment offers almost the only scope for income. However, employment is not always available. There may be little demand for hired labour. Moreover, employment is often seasonal. These vagaries of the employment situation provides a reason for the Government to step in and take steps to provide employment, and try to reduce poverty.
Some of the main providers of employment in the country are the Governmental undertakings and public sector companies. The Indian Railways, for instance, is one of the biggest providers of employment. In villages, however, there are no Government companies or departmental undertakings. Hence the need arises to develop programmes and schemes which help to give employment to the rural poor and to lessen their poverty. These schemes form the topic of this unit. At the end of the block, Annexure I explains the meaning of some of the more technical terms used in the text of the unit.
Objectives
After going through the unit, you should be able to :
- describe the income generation and employment programmes launched by the government;
- trace the development and evolution of the anti-poverty strategies in India;
- describe the minimum needs and area based development programmes in rural India, and
- evaluate and assess the working of these programmes.
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