Economic Problems and Challenges: Poverty and Unemployment Class 10 GSEB Solutions Social Science Chapter 17

Gujarat Board Class 10 Social Science Economic Problems and Challenges: Poverty and Unemployment Textbook Questions and Answers

I. Answer the following questions in detail.
Question 1. Explain the poverty alleviation programmes.
Answer:
Poverty alleviation programmes in India can be broadly classified into:

1. Wage based employment programmes,
2. Self-employment programmes.
3. Programmes related to food security.
4. Programmes related to social security.
5. Programmes related to reduction of poverty in the urban areas.

A brief narration of some of these programmes is as under:
(i) Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): This is a wage-based employment programme. One person from every family is guaranteed wage employment for minimum 100 days in the financial year. The daily wages are fixed by the government and if it fails to provide work, unemployment allowance is paid. Rural Development activities such as horticulture, land levelling, tree plantation, water conservation, cleaning of canals, etc. are undertaken.

(ii) Chief Minister’s Village Road Scheme: Village Panchayats are provided financial assistance to build approach roads and thereby connect the village to the nearby villages and highways.

(iii) Deendayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana: This programme of rural electrification proposes unhindered supply of electricity to 18000 villages which are without supply of electricity. It proposes to supply electricity for domestic use and agriculture at a concessional rate, provide subsidy to farmers to purchase electric motors and set up new power sub-stions. It provides subsidy to purchase solar energy equipment.

(iv) Maa Annapurna Yojana: The Antyodaya families in the cities and villages are provided 35 kg food grains free of cost per month. The other poor persons are provided 5 kg food grains at a very low rate. This programme is a part of the food security activity in Gujarat.

(v) Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana: Every member of Parliament is provided ten crore rupees to be spent on the development of an adopted village. The activities include improvement in education and health services and generate employment opportunities. In their endeavour to make an ideal village, they build permanent public assets, promote social harmony and preserve cultural heritage.

(vi) Mission Mangalam: It is meant to encourage women to form Self-Help Groups. They are provided skill-training for household economic employed and come out of the vicious circle of poverty.

(vii) Dattopand Thengdi Vyaj-Sahay Yojana: It is a scheme through which the government provides loans to village artisans at a low rate to purchase raw material for their handicraft and cottage industries.

(viii) Jyoti Gramodyog Vikas Yojana: It is the ‘Start-up India’ scheme for unemployed persons in the rural areas. They are provided financial help and subsidies to undertake production activities and overcome poverty.

(ix) Vajpayee Bankable Yojana: It is meant for the unemployed persons who are in the age group of 18 to 65 years and have completed primary education. They are provided skill training and financial help to undertake their production activities. This scheme is meant for the unemployed persons in the rural as well as urban areas.

Question 2. Discuss the steps taken by the government for poverty alleviation programme in the agricultural sector and the programme ‘Gramodayathi Bharat Uday’.
Answer:
The Steps for Poverty alleviation in the agriculture sector are as follows:
(i) Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana: This scheme is meant to increase irrigation facility for agriculture. It proposes to provide irrigation facility to the entire agricultural land, promotion of drip irrigation and construct small, medium and big size check dams. Such activities will also generate employment and income for the rural poor.

(ii) Prime Minister Farm Security (Insurance) Plan: This plan proposes to provide farm security, provide financial assistance for loss/damage to the crops, purchase cotton and provide remunerative prices to the agricultural produce.

(iii) National Drinking Water Programme: Like PM’s Krishi Sinchai Yojana, this programme proposes to extend irrigation facility to improving the existing canal network provide tube wells, check soil erosion and salinity. Digging ponds, watershed development, construction of tanks, rainwater harvesting, lining of canals, renovation/revitalization of the check dams are the related activities.

(iv) Enam Scheme: Under this scheme, the farmers enlist their products and the buyers are put in direct contact. Thereby intermediates are eliminated. The farmers get remunerative prices due to competition among the buyers,

(v) Integrated dairy development scheme for the tribal women provides help for development of geoponics and plantation agriculture.

(vi) Organic farming: It is encouraged by providing training and finance at a low interest rate and setting up markets,

(vii) Gramodayathi Bharat Uday: This is the most ambitious programme of the present government for attaining economic development of India by means of rural development. Steps are proposed to prevent losses to the farmers. Record of land survey are maintained. Finance is made available for the mechanized farming and computerization in agriculture. Soil Testing laboratories are set up and advice is given to the farmers on cultivation of remunerative crops. All irrigation related activities are undertaken and additional employment is generated in the rural areas. Thereby, poverty alleviation will take place and farmers will be freed from the debt trap.

Question 3. Give information about the efforts made by the government to reduce poverty.
Answer:
The strategy adopted by the government in the post-independence period can be stated as under:
(i) The strategy of ‘Garibi Hatao’ was launched along with emphasis on the economic development. It was expected that generation of employment will enhance income and thereby reduce poverty. However, the benefits of development did not purcolate down and the poor continued to remain poor.

(ii) The strategy of ‘Green Revolution’ gave boost to agriculture and increased agricultural production to a large extent. However, the Green Revolution entailed capital-intensive technique of production. The rich farmers made capital investment and reaped the benefits of the Green Revolution. The poor could not buy inputs, such as fertilizers. Insecticides and pesticides.

They could not afford mechanization and water-saving techniques of irrigation. The strategy of the ‘Green Revolution’ failed to reduce poverty. The disparity in income meant that the rich became richer and the poor remained where they were or became poorer.

(iii) Economic development was slow and sluggish. The land reforms intended to reduce poverty in the rural segment were not properly implemented.

(iv) Rapid industrialization did take place but it added to the wealth of the urban rich. The higher taxation on the high-income groups and the heavy taxes on the luxurious good had little impact on the rich.

(v) The government resorted to public distribution system to provide essential commodities to the common people at subsidised price through fair price shops: This was intended to raise the standard of living of the poor.

(vi) The government encouraged the activities allied to agriculture such as dairy, forestry, pisciculture to enhance the income and provide alternate sources of employment in the rural areas.

(vii) Encouragement was given to the small and cottage industries to generate employment in the rural areas. Laws were enacted to provide protection to the small and cottage industries by reservation of production of certain goods. Arrangements were made to provide skill training to the unemployed young persons to enable them to undertake self-employment activities.

(viii) Steps have been taken to spread education, provide health services, provide agricultural credit, built infrastructure facilities, provide agricultural inputs such as the quality seeds and fertilizers at a subsidized rate. The government has started polytechnics and vocational training centres.

(ix) Encouragement has been given to women to form Self-Help-Groups and undertake self-employment activities.

(x) A number of social welfare activities were undertaken to improve the living standard of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and economically backward sections of the society.

Question 4.Explain the schemes and programmes undertaken by the government to reduce unemployment (Main Four).
Answer:
(i) Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): This is a wage-based employment programme. One person from every family is guaranteed wage employment for minimum 100 days in the financial year. The daily wages are fixed by the government and if it fails to provide work, unemployment allowance is paid. Rural development activities such as horticulture, land levelling, tree plantation, water conservation, cleaning of canals, etc, are undertaken.

(ii) Mission Mangalam is meant to encourage women to form Self Help Groups. They are provided skill-training for household economic employed and come out of the vicious circle of poverty.

(iii) Jyoti Gramodyog Vikas Yojana is the ‘Start-up India’ scheme for unemployed persons in the rural areas. They are provided financial help and subsidies to undertake production activities and overcome poverty.

(iv) Integrated dairy development scheme for the tribal women provides help for development of geoponics and plantation agriculture.

II. Answer the following questions in point-wise.
Question 1. What is poverty? What are the characteristics of the people living below poverty line?
Answer:
Poverty is a qualitative term that denotes the lowest (sub-human) level of life. It is a situation wherein a large number of people are unable to satisfy even their basic requirements of food, clothing, shelter, education and health.

The following characteristics of the people living below poverty line have been observed:

• Inability to get two meals a day.
• Non-availability of adequate place of dwelling and as such forced to live in slum areas.
• Income inadequate to meet the required expenditure.
• Mostly illiterate.
• Lifespan below the national average.
• High death rate due to malnutrition and starvation.
• Lack of nutritious food accounts for high infant mortality rate.
• Child labour forced upon the family.

Question 2. Explain the poverty in India.
Answer:
Poverty is the serious and complex economic problem before India.

• India is in the grip of poverty since age and this chronic problem is difficult to resolve.
• The landless and farm labourers, the small and marginal farmers, the village artisans the inhabitants of forests and mountainous regions and the tribals are the rural poor.
• The temporary (casual) workers in the industries, the daily wage earners, the domestic workers, rickshaw drivers, the workers in tea stalls, hotels and the dhabas are among the urban poor.
• On the basis of monthly expenditure of ? 4080 for family in the rural areas and ?5000 in the urban areas was declared as the poverty line by the Planning Commission 2011-12.
• Those families whose income was less were deemed as the “Below Poverty Line’ (BPL) families.
• The estimated “BPL’ population was 27 crores. It was 21.9% of the total population of India.
• As per the UNDP Report, 21.92% population of India lived below poverty line in 2011-12.
• The proportion of poverty in the rural and urban areas was 25.7% and 13.7%. Chhattisgarh is the poorest state in India, with 36.9% BPL population.
• On the other hand, Gba has the lower BPL population of 5.09%.
• In Gujarat 16.63% population live below poverty line. Besides Chhattisgarh, the other states having more them 30% BPL population are Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
• India has rich natural resources which have not been fully utilized.
• As a result, a large number of people live in poverty. It is said that, “The poor live in rich India”.

Question 3. What are reasons for the emergence of poverty in India?
Answer:
The reasons for the emergence of poverty in India are as follows:
• Irregular rainfall and inadequate irrigation facilities are responsible for the decline in income from agriculture.
• Seasonal nature of employment and absence of alternative employment in the rural area.
• The illiterate people are engaged in agriculture for ages. They do not possess required knowledge,
skills or training for the high-paying professions. Sway of customs, traditions and (blind) religious beliefs force people to indulge in huge unproductive expenditure. They borrow money from the village moneylenders at exorbitant rate of interest by mortgaging their land. As a result, more than 90% villagers are caught in the debt trap.
• The illiterate villages are exploited by the landlords and moneylenders.
• The illiterate villagers are unable to derive their benefits as they do not possess information of the welfare schemes of the government.
• The British rulers encouraged cultivation of cash
• The British rulers imposed exorbitant land revenue and made it compulsory to make its payment in cash. They did not grant relief even in time of natural calamities. The farmers had no other alternative but to approach money-lenders to raise funds for the payment of the land revenue. The exploitative British rule was mainly responsible for the rural poverty crops. This reduced the land under cultivation of the food- grains. As a result, production of foodgrains declined. This triggered scarcity of food grains and increase in the prices.
• Development of agriculture was neglected during the era of planning. Benefits of development did not reach the poor and they continued to live in poverty.
• Economic reforms introduced in 1991 have adverse effect on agriculture, small scale and cottage industries. The poor in the rural areas migrated to the urban areas in search of employment. This resulted in the collapse of agriculture as an economic activity.
• Malnutrition and starvation are common among the poor. They suffered form many ailments. Expensive medical treatment cause further hardship.
• Technological change have led to the closure of many traditional crafts and industries. The workers have been rendered jobless.
• Progress in medical science has increased the expectancy of life. Population has increased due to low death rate.
• The supply of labour has increased manifold. However, employment opportunities are insufficient. This led to unemployment and unemployment has further triggered poverty.
• The purchasing power of the people has declined. As, a result, the standard of living deteriorated. This is a reflection on the state of poverty in India.

Question 4. What are the steps taken by the government to provide social security and food security?
Answer:
The Government of India has enacted the National Food Security Act in 2013.

• Food security means provision of nutritious food to enable every individual to live an active and healthy life.
• The government of Gujarat launched ‘Maa Anapurna Yojana’ to provide food security in Gujarat.
• The Antyodaya families which are the poorest among the poor are provided 35 kg foodgrains free of cost, per month.
• The poor families are provided 5 kg food grain per person per month at high subsidized rates.
• About 3.62 crore people in Gujarat have been provided food security by “Maa Annapurna Yojana’.

Question 5. Explain ‘poors live in rich India’.
Answer:
India is said to be a rich country of the poor people. The riches of India had attracted the foreign invaders since the ancient times.

• The British exploited the rich natural resources of India.
• The British industries and the industrialists prospered. They exploited not only resources but also people of India. They made India country of the poor people.
• A small rich class had always existed in India. They acquired riches and wealth by exploiting millions of the poor. Even today the industrialists exploit the workers and the Zamindars exploit the farm labour.
• There is a small rich class and the large majority is poor.
• Even today, about 30% of the people in India live below the poverty line. Thus, poor live in rich India.

Question 6. State the reasons for unemployment.
Answer:
Prior to the advent of the British rule, India had a self-sufficient village economy and the problems of unemployment did not exist.

• The exploitative land revenue policy of the British uprooted the farmers and made them landless labourers.
• In times of natural calamities, the rural poor migrated to the urban areas and added to the number of people seeking employment.
• The British destroyed the traditional village and cottage industries and the craftsmen were rendered jobless.
• There was explosion of population in India.
• The supply of labour was in excess of demand and the industries were not in a position to absorb the entire available labour force.
• Indian capitalists did not have enough capital to start a large number of industries and provide employment. Natural calamities reduced the employment in agriculture.
• India did not have technically qualified engineers/technicians to take up the skilled labour positions in industries.

Question 7. State the effects of unemployment.
Answer:
Unemployment is a serious and complex problem before the Indian economy. Its (adverse) effects are as follows:

• Unemployment is the root cause of poverty in India. When there is no employment there is no income and when there is no income there is poverty and hardship for the poor.
• Unemployment leads to poverty and poverty leads to low standard for living. The unemployed poor live in slums, suffer malnutrition, starvation, diseases and early death.
• The failure to find employment make the educated and intelligent young people to migrate to other countries. The brain-drain is a major loss due to inadequate employment opportunities.
• The illiterate and semi-literate unemployed youth is lured by the criminals to indulge in antisocial activities.
• A new problem of suicide by the farmers has emerged in recent times in some parts of India as the poor farmer has neith3er money nor job to repay the loans.

III. Answer the following questions in brief.
Question 1. Explain relative poverty of absolute poor.
Answer:
Those persons in the developing countries who are unable to fulfil the basic necessities are called absolute poor and that condition is known as absolute poverty. The society in developed countries have different classes. These is a wide disparity in the income of these classes. There are families whose income and standard of living is inferior than the families of well-off classes. These families are considered to be relatively poor. This situation of comparative riches is described as relative poverty.

Question 2. Explain Agro-Business Policy.
Answer:
The government of Gujarat has declared Agro-Business Policy-2016. It proposes to provide employment to 10 lakh people by setting up agro-processing units in the State. It also proposes to export processed agro products which will generate sufficient income and reduce poverty.

Question 3. Classify MANREGA programme.
Answer:
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee ACT (MGNREGA) is a wage-based employed programme. One person from every family is guaranteed wage employment for minimum 100 days in the financial year. The daily wages are fixed by the government and if it fails to provide work, unemployment allowance is paid. Rural Development activities such as horticulture, land levelling, tree plantation, water conservation, cleaning of canals, etc are undertaken.

Question 4. What is industrial unemployment?
Answer:
Industrial unemployment is the result of conflicts between the employers and employees, leading to strikes, lockouts and closure of industry.

Question 5. Explain the idea of ‘World Labour Market’.
Answer:
The phenomena of international mobility of labour has given rise to the idea of World Labour Market in the era of globalization. Globalization assumes, among other things, free flow of labour across the world. This process started much before the onset of globalization. The bright students from the well-to-do families in India used to go to either England or America for higher education. Getting accustomed to better working conditions, much higher salary, comfortable life and social status, many of them did not return to India. This loss of the most intelligent people was described as ‘brain-drain’.

World Labour Market is a new form of brain-drain. A much large number of people enrol themselves in the world market and seek employment anywhere in the world. This has become a transnational phenomenon and people of one country migrate to another country. Thus, world has become a single market for the employers to select their prospective employees from anywhere in the world. Those seeking employment are willing to serve employers anywhere in the world.

This hunt for employees oh the one hand and the jobs, on the other hand, is more pronounced in high technical areas due information technology, biotechnology, communication and medical science. India is among the loser countries in the World Labour Market. However, the remittances of the fofeign exchange by the NRIs adds to the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

IV. Select the correct option of the following questions.