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Rural Poverty in India: Classification of Causes!
A. Personal Causes of Poverty:
1. Sickness:
Due to sickness, a man is unable to work and his income decreases. Sickness increases poverty and poverty also increases sickness due to hard labour.
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2. Mental diseases:
Due to mental diseases a person becomes incapable to do anything. This decreases his income and increases poverty.
3. Accidents:
If the earning member of a family faces a serious accident the whole family suffers and becomes poor.
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4. Illiteracy:
Poverty and illiteracy are related. Illiteracy increases poverty because the capacity to earn of an Illiterate person is very low.
5. Idleness:
Most of the people suffer from idleness. Idleness is also a cause of poverty. They do not want to work hence remain poor.
6. Extravagance:
It means spending a large percentage of annual earnings on social ceremonies like marriage, death feast etc. and people being unwilling to break the expensive customs. Here the cause of poverty is not a lower income but excess expenditure over income.
7. Demoralisation:
It means lowering of character and morale. It leads to personal dis-organisation and finally to poverty. The examples like, drinking, prostitution, gambling drug-addiction habits leads to poverty.
8. Old age:
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In old age, a person cannot work properly. It leads to poverty.
9. Death of earning member:
If the earning member of the family dies suddenly due to some reasons then it leads to poverty.
B. Social Causes of Poverty:
1. Low level of education:
Low level of education and also faulty educational system leads to poverty. The general literacy level in the rural areas in the country is low while for females it is very low.
2. Evil customs and traditions:
Evil customs like dowry in India compels many families to remain poor In spite of all the efforts of their menfolk to earn.
3. Insufficient provision of medical aid:
Insufficient provision of medical aid leads to prolonged diseases, permanent displacements, untimely death of the person and also delayed cures. All these increase poverty.
4. War:
War leads to heavy loss of property and manpower. It gives a serious blow to trade and commerce. Epidemics spread after war thus adding to the misery of the people. All these lead to poverty.
5. Faulty and insufficient housing:
Due to faulty government plan and programmes millions of people of India are forced to live In slums which is very dirty and unhealthy for living. This reduces their capacity to work by increasing diseases. Hence it leads to poverty.
6. Absence of training in home management:
Mismanagement of household leads to poverty. The housewives should be well trained that they should neatly manage the household. Lack of their knowledge in managing household leads to poverty.
7. Absence of dynamic community leadership:
Absence of dynamic community leadership leads to poverty because without them the rural people are ignorant as the beneficiaries of some governmental rural development programmes and they do not get governmental assistance.
8. Inter-caste conflicts and rivalries:
Caste conflicts and rivalries lead to poverty.
9. Lack of communication facilities and markets i.e. Infra-structure lead to poverty.
10. Non availability of electricity for agricultural as well as industrial use in most of the villages leads to poverty.
C. Economic Causes of Poverty:
1. Agricultural causes:
Low agricultural productivity resulting from dependence on traditional methods of cultivation and inadequate knowledge of modern skills, lead to poverty.
2. Unemployment:
Lack of employment leads to unemployment.
3. Unequal distribution:
Where distribution of wealth is unequal even if production is sufficient, millions of farmers and labours remain poor in the country.
4. Economic depression:
It leads decrease in trade and commerce, unemployment of millions of labourers. So economic depression Is considered as a serious cause of poverty.
5. Unproductive hoarding:
If a major portion of wealth of the country is hoarded in the form of jewellery, the economic development of the country is seriously handicapped. This leads to poverty.
6. Inadequate and ineffective implementation of anti-poverty programmes leads to poverty.
7. Lack of irrigation facilities and erratic rainfall leads to poverty.
8. Imperfect and exploited credit markets leads to poverty.
9. Unwise economic policy:
Due to unwise and faulty economic policy of the government people remain poor.
D. Geographical Causes of Poverty:
1. Un-favourable weather condition and climate lead to poverty. Both for agriculture as well as for industry weather and climatic condition should be favourable. Un-favourable-ness leads to poverty.
2. Absence of natural resources:
It leads to poverty. Because of it people of hilly areas, extremely cold or hot areas generally remain poor.
3. Natural calamity:
Frequent natural calamities like earthquakes, floods, super cyclone etc. lead to poverty.
4. Pests:
Pests are a major cause of damage to agriculture. So low yielding of agriculture leads to poverty. Poverty is a relative concept varies from country to country. It is the condition or state of the lack of minimum necessities of life in accordance with the existing standards of the society.