Key Controller of the National Funds - Term Paper Example

Introduction Poverty is a very big problem that many countries are struggling to eliminate amongst her populations. A lot of investments made by people around the globe are actually aimed at eradicating poverty amidst them. The governments of the world are a well struggling to make strategies for their country in order save their people from the anguish of poverty. Poverty is still a big struggle in the developing world where a greater majority of the people is considered as poor. According to the World Bank survey, anyone earning below one dollar per day is usually graded as poor. May of such people resides in Africa, parts of Asia countries, Latin American countries and India. However in the developed nations, the number of poor people is reduced due to higher levels of development and excellence strategies put in place to curb poverty conditions in these areas. The government’s response to issues of eradicating poverty amidst them is of prime importance as she is the key controller of the national funds. This paper will look at the success of various programs in India aimed at alleviating and eliminating poverty among the Indian populations. According to Parikh, (1994) over the one third of the Indian population is illiterate and a larger majority of these is not educated beyond the age of 15 years. In line with this, Jha & Srinivasan, (2001 ) note that; At the beginning of the new millennium, 260 million people in the country did not have incomes to access a consumption basket which defines the poverty line. Of these, 75 per cent were in the rural areas. India is home to 22 per cent of the world’s poor. Such a high incidence of poverty is a matter of concern in view of the fact that poverty eradication has been one of the major objectives of the development planning process (3785). This indicates a larger percentage of the people who are either unemployable or lowly employed. Illiteracy and ignorance according to Hulme & Paul, (1999) is the root cause of poverty in various parts of the world. The first step require in the elimination of poverty is therefore the need to elevate the education sector and increase awareness among the people. The Indian government is doing a lot concerning this with more practical educational systems adopted in order to develop skills rather than promoting mere learning in most of the Indian learning and education sector. As Ramaswami, (2002) notes, even among the educated Indian populations, all do not possess adequate employable skills worth generating independent income. All these problems according to Mehta, (2004) stems from the education sector which is not turned towards changing the economic scenario in the country. The rural areas carry the largest number of Indian population which is mainly agricultural. Even this is greatly affected by the dwindling amount of cultivable lands and lack of adequate rainfall for the development of arable farming systems. Irrigation farming in many of the Indian lands is not possible due large capital requirements. This has led to acute rural- urban migration whereby a large number of people are moving into the urban areas to look for greener pastures. These end up doing various menial jobs in the cities since they lack adequate and specialized education required for good employment in the industries and labor intensive companies in the country. This has brought in a double misfortune in the country as the largest agricultural lands are evacuated by people moving into the urban centers in search of jobs. The urban centers for this reason have been largely crowded with people with less education and almost no skills for employment. Lack of relevant or adequate skills for employment practices among many urban dwellers have eventually led to the development of informal jobs and settlements in most of the towns contrary to the overall expectations of the development agenda. As a result the development image of many cities has been distorted as informal settlements and jobs crop up in most of them. An example of such informal employment sector which has been in persistence in most of the Indian cities is artisantry developed through apprenticeship. The skills in artisanry are learnt informally and do not require much learning. The initial steps in development according to Mehta, (2004) are the provision of education and development of skills among the resident population of any country. These include the skills relevant for the manufacturing industry to aid in the development of various manufacturing industries and other related services such as the medical sector among others. In essence, the provision of health and employment opportunities generally raises the standards of living of the people and is associated with the good life and ample living conditions. The government of India, upon the realization of abject poverty conditions under which many of her people live has come up with various projects to help lift the lives of her citizens. These projects are aimed at gearing the people to develop the required skills for the manufacturing and health provision sectors. Even though, Parikh, (1994) argues that creating a literate society is the key agenda in development at all levels, the Indian government has fused all these with the provision of employment opportunities to the rural residents to empower them and help them prioritize education as the key agenda in development. According to Hulme & Paul, (1999) literacy is as well the cornerstone for development, it however need to be coupled with other provisions such as ensuring adequate health and safe living conditions in the rural areas besides empowering the local residents to gain income to support the various developmental agendas at the grass root level. The Indian government for this reason has embarked on the provision of a skill based system of education whereby the students are taught the various skills necessary for application in the job market. Relevant courses and institutions have therefore been developed to provide people with relevant skills for economic development. Since much of the population in India is located in the rural agricultural regions, the government of India has decided to begin by alleviating the poverty conditions in India to minimize migrations into the fee urban centers which are already congested with people most of whom are in the informal sector. The development programs have therefore begun at the grass root level. Such programs are aimed at providing employment in the rural areas and developing relevant skills necessary for development in the rural regions. In order to attain the overall growth and development in the regions, the government of India has concentrated in rural development under the large umbrella of poverty alleviation programs in the rural areas commonly referred to as rural poverty alleviation programs. Under this umbrella are a number of other programs such as the provision of self employment opportunities to the local populations in a bid to empower them further. Besides all these, rural education and development of skills has been given utter priority in order to come up with an all round population geared towards the achievement of the overall goals and make the pending projects a success. A wide array of programs has been initiated in the rural in India to help meet these demands and propositions suggested in rural poverty alleviation programs, the success of which has put the country forward in the world economic wellbeing. It is for this reason that Parikh, (1994) notes; Since India became part of the global economy and underwent economic reform in 1991, its economy is growing at a faster rate of nearly 10 per cent per annum1. In the process, India has become the fourth largest economy in the world. In the last two decades, a significant proportion of the population across the country has reaped the benefits of this economic growth. They have become the part of the global economy and market, and their lives have transformed into one of global citizens with all the comforts and luxury in life[ CITATION Par94 \p 34 \l 1033 ]. I will discuss most of these projects one after another and relate their contributions to the overall development of the rural populations in India. Self-employment programs As has been mentioned earlier in this paper, a larger majority of the people live in the rural areas compared to the urban regions. A lot of these people have been living under extreme poverty conditions for a long time. The government of India has battled much to eliminate poverty in most of the people living in the rural India by making projects empowerment in the rural environments. Many projects have been established in several parts of India to help the rural communities achieve their developmental goals. Rural development projects were started in the early 1970s and were commonly referred to as the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP). The main aim of this project was to increase the resource base of the rural communities in the nation. The main target population in the program was the rural small scale farmers and the landless laborers. According to Hulme & Paul, (1999) rural poverty in India is mainly escalated by the caste system which limits people to certain economic classes which are very difficult to eliminate. However, the government realized the contrary based on changing the perception in the minds of the rural poor population by empowering them to the required levels. These ideas, contrary to the internalized caste systems which bar people from working their ways up the poverty line have helped the rural communities to make milestone developments for better income. The beneficiaries of the project were given training on various aspects of economic development and viability. Such include the local based industries such as the making of second hand goods such as cooking wares, farm wares and many others. The small scale farmers were also provided with credit to help them develop their farms and promote their local products. Moreover, the government embarked on developing the local infrastructures such as roads for ease inaccessibility of places and transportation of farm produce from to the market, providing adequate water supplies to promote health among the local communities among other empowerment projects. The small scale agricultural communities received vocational training and skills which would enable them to generate additional income from other practices other than from their farms. In this way, the government was able to diversify the production sector to accommodate almost everyone in the rural areas. Where the people did not have enough land to practice productive agriculture, they engaged in other vocational activities to boost their income levels, other than farming as the main rural activity, the rural communities were also empowered to practice animal husbandry, fishery, and forestry which added to their meager income levels. As a result the poverty levels were minimized to some levels over a short period of time. The success of these programs has seen India move from the list of the underdeveloped nations to that of the most rapidly developing nations on earth. By 1980s the scheme was integrated to encompass the scheduling of the caste systems and tribes in the regions, as well as reshaping the perceptions of women and rural artisans[ CITATION Meh04 \l 1033 ]. The undermining systems introduced by the famous Indian caste system was being eroded in this way. Due to the many failures that were associated with the logistics that we involved in the development of the various sectors of growth identified, the Indian government resolved to change her focus involving the modalities that were involved in the identification and distribution the funds given to the farmers. Vocational training and the provision of credit facilities was then replaced with the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) in 1999 Jha & Srinivasan, (2001 ) which concentrated on ensuring accurate and relevant provision of loans. According to Mehta, (2004) observations; By the end of March 2004, 1,232,768 SHGs have been linked to mainstream banks for savings services, of which 1,079, 091 groups have accessed credit from more than 35,000 branches of commercial, cooperatives and rural banks10. The cumulative credit disbursed to these groups was US$ 887.32 million. With an average membership of 16, at least 19 million people have access to formal savings facilities through SHGs, of which about 17 million have also accessed credit services. This showed the magnitude and the impact of the program in the country. It has become a social movement across Indian villages [ CITATION Ram02 \p 1133 \l 1033 ]. Wage employment programs The success of the empowerment programs in the rural areas in India were inhibited greatly at times especially during the low agricultural period (lean agricultural times), due to drought and famine strike and many other omens. These factors continued to negatively affect the many approaches the government and the local communities were employing to help alleviate the poor condition of the rural Indian populations. The government therefore decided to come up with other means of ensuring continued supply of food and income to the Indian rural populations during the low agricultural income periods. Such related projects included among others the use of the local communities to improve the community infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer systems in the region, building the local/ village based schools and hospitals among others. These projects [ CITATION Ram02 \l 1033 ] not only provided some income and jobs to the local populations but also helped improve the local infrastructure and develop the local communities. As a result the wage earning levels of the local communities did change a great deal with the local villagers being able to meet their demands both at the high production seasons as well as low production seasons. In addition to the creation of the local wage earning mechanisms the government also provided a special wage employment program referred to as Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) in October 1992. This program aimed at providing supplementary income for those living in drought prone areas which largely depend on herding as their main economic activity. The program also targeted these living in the desert regions as well as the tribal and hill areas of the nation. These people fall among the extremely marginalized communities in the regions who are periodically affected by extreme cases of poverty and lack of income. The program also provided employment during the lean agricultural seasons. Between 2001 and 2002, the EAS was further reinforced by the introduction of the food for work program in eight drought prone provinces of India which were greatly affected by insufficient rainfall and food especially during the low production seasons[ CITATION Hul99 \l 1033 ]. Most of the wages were provided in the form of food to the resident populations such as grains. As Mehta, ( 2004) notes in addition to the food grains provided by the government to the people living in these areas, they were also provided with free grains for planting though the regions barely yielded much to support the local communities through the entire seasons of hardships. Social security programs In addition to the self employment schemes and the wage employment programs implemented by the Indian government to help curb poverty in the country, the government added a social security program to help supplement the two programs given their many flaws and inadequacies to meet some intended goals. This was a set of programs combined together to work in a combination to raise the standards of living of the people in question. Some of the programs under this broad program included among others the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP) which was as well a set of three schemes. Among the sub schemes included the National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS). NOAPS concentrated on providing pension schemes to the old people at 65 years and above at a rate of about Rs. 75 per month. This pension scheme mainly targeted older people without any reasonable income sources or no family members to help them up (the very old, retired and destitute persons in the society). As Hulme & Paul, (1999) notes; In the year 1999-2000, 8.71 million eligible elderly were identified, but the scheme could reach out to only 5 million beneficiaries. It was found that the benefits really reached the poor and the leakage rate was found to be low [ CITATION Par94 \p 34 \l 1033 ]. This program helped so much in reducing the number of dependants in the rural societies as older and disabled members of the communities were catered for in the scheme. High dependency ration[ CITATION Jha01 \l 1033 ] is a great hindrance to development. This is usually determined by the number of people in the employment sector versus the number of people who directly or indirectly depend on them for assistance of any kind. The fewer number of people in the employment sector and the higher the dependent population, the poorer the society grows and the hard it is to achieve the intended goals of development. India was known for however historical rise in population over the past few decades making it very difficult to achieve some levels of economic development. As was mentioned earlier in this bulletin, a large number of the Indian population by the early 1990s bare had lower elementary education with no additional training to supplement their rapidly growing population. A large number of this poor population lived and is still living in the rural areas where access to basic income sources has been a great problem for a long time. As a result of this there was a high dependency in the rural areas further deterring any developmental programs put in place by the government to alleviate the poor conditions. The right ingredient that was realized in the late 1990s and early 2000 made a major step in putting India ahead of many countries in the world today. As Ramaswami, (2002) notes, poverty is a threat to development and its elimination is the beginning of success and which needs to be greatly exploited Despite the many successes registered by the many programs mentioned above, there were several hurdles which were to be overcome and which of course presented grounds for widespread failure of these projects in some areas. To begin with, identifying the rural beneficiaries in each case was not easy and as a result much of the funds especially the credits to the farmers and the poor populations in the society went to waste as the relevant beneficiaries could not be properly identified. Moreover, in some cases corruption took the center stage and even the unintended people and groups also received the funds leading to misallocation and misappropriation of the national funds. This led to huge losses incurred by the local and national governments as much of the finances went to waste. Besides, much of the funds went to waste as the intended projects were poorly managed. Some of these stalled because the allocated funds had been squandered by those who were put in charge of these projects. Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that India, a formerly poor nation in the region has grown to become the talk of the whole world with numerous prospects in her development agenda. Various projects and programs have seen the nation through her life hurdles. A majority of the Indian population resides in the rural areas which are also graded as the poorest regions in the country. The government’s efforts to develop the rural areas therefore became the target for the poor. Various programs were therefore initiated to help alleviate the living conditions of the rural population and reduce the local the national burden of poverty. Today, much of the rural population is living a more improved lifestyle contrary to the former lifestyles which exposed them to abject poverty. References CITATION Par94 \p 34 \l 1033 : , (Parikh, 1994, p. 34), CITATION Meh04 \l 1033 : , (Mehta, 2004), CITATION Ram02 \p 1133 \l 1033 : , (Ramaswami, 2002, p. 1133), CITATION Ram02 \l 1033 : , (Ramaswami, 2002), CITATION Hul99 \l 1033 : , (Hulme & Paul, 1999), CITATION Par94 \p 34 \l 1033 : , (Parikh, 1994, p. 34), CITATION Jha01 \l 1033 : , (Jha & Srinivasan, 2001 ), Read More