Poverty 2

A measure of the extent of poverty in Rural India can be estimated as follows. The above calculations show average land holding and average per capita income for people depending on agricultural income. But the holding size for people varies widely. The farm size distribution data was extracted from central statistical organization and corresponding per capita income was calculated. This gives us an idea about the amount of poverty among the small and marginal farmers. The Farm size distribution for India as per the central statistical organization is tabulated below. The acreage per holding and the number of people who hold this size of land is shown here. Farm size hectare <1 1 to 2 2 to 4 4 to 10 >10

No of owners mil 76.1 22.8 14.1 6.6 1.2

Total holding mil hectare 30.1 32.3 38.3 38.1 21.1

Area per holding hectare 0.40 1.42 2.72 5.77 17.58

Acre per holding Acre 0.99 3.54 6.79 14.43 43.96

Assuming that there are four dependents depending on one farm holding, The total number of people depending on a farm and their corresponding per capita income (assuming that a 1 acre farm has 8000/- income per year) is calculated and tabulated below. No of persons million 304.4 91.2 56.4 26.4 4.8

per capita income Rs 1978 7083 13582 28864 87917

This gives us an idea about the amount of poverty among the small and marginal farmers. It can be seen that about 304 million or 30 crore of cultivators in India who depend on farm income have about 1978 rupees of per capita income. This calculates to about 165 rupees per month. This amount is too meager to even support basic food requirement for an average person, leave alone other expenses for clothing, housing, educational, medical purposes. What needs to be done? This is the challenge we have before us and neo-liberal policies or socialist policies, this economic question demands an answer. The people of India deserve better treatment and Specifically people of Orissa whose government claims 6 lakh crore in investment in last 6 years would like to know,

how they can derive benefit from what their representative in power positions are doing.