Poverty and Developmental Issues

What the official syllabus says

UPSC Civil Services (Main) Examination, Paper II: General Studies I.

Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

This page covers poverty and developmental issues, their problems and remedies.

Topics in detail

Understanding poverty

• Absolute and relative poverty; income poverty and multidimensional poverty
• Measurement in India: the expert groups on the poverty line (Lakdawala, Tendulkar, Rangarajan)
• The Multidimensional Poverty Index (global and national)
• Rural and urban poverty; chronic and transient poverty; the poverty trap
• Causes: unemployment and underemployment, low productivity in agriculture, inequality in assets, social exclusion, poor health and education, disasters

Poverty and society

• Groups at higher risk: landless labourers, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, women-headed households, informal workers, people with disabilities
• Regional concentration of poverty
• Poverty, hunger and malnutrition
• Poverty and access to justice, health care and education; the cycle of deprivation across generations

Approaches to poverty in India

• Early estimates (Dadabhai Naoroji) and planning-era thinking
• Growth-led (trickle-down) versus targeted approaches
• The shift from a single income line to multidimensional measures
• Rights-based approaches: right to work, right to food, right to education

Developmental issues

• Development and growth; human development and the Human Development Index
• Regional imbalance and backward regions
• Inequality of income, wealth and opportunity
• Development-induced displacement and rehabilitation
• Jobless growth and the informal economy
• Sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals

Remedies

• Wage employment (the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005)
• Self-employment and livelihoods (the National Rural Livelihoods Mission and self-help groups)
• Food security: the public distribution system and the National Food Security Act, 2013
• Housing, sanitation, drinking water and electricity programmes
• Social security and pensions; financial inclusion; direct benefit transfer
• Area programmes for backward districts (the Aspirational Districts Programme)
• Land reform, skills and education as long-term remedies

Overlaps

• Government schemes and their delivery are studied in General Studies II; growth, employment and inclusive growth in General Studies III.