Syllabus:- GS I (Poverty and developmental issues); GS II (Issues relating to poverty and hunger)
- India has not released its Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) data since 2011-12. Normally a CES is conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSO) every five years. But the CES of 2017-18 (already conducted a year late) was not made public by the Government of India. Now, it is likely to be conducted in 2021-22, the data from which will probably not be available before end-2022.
- Meanwhile, we know that the economy has been slowing for nine quarters prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment had reached a 45-year high in 2017-18, as revealed by NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
Sufficient to estimate change
India’s labour force surveys, including the five-yearly Employment-Unemployment Rounds from 1973-4 to 2011-12, have also collected consumption expenditure of households. The PLFS has maintained that tradition. While the PLFS’s questions on consumption expenditure are not as detailed as those of the CES, they are sufficient for us to estimate changes in consumption on a consistent basis across time.
It enables any careful researcher to estimate the incidence of poverty (i.e., the share in the total population of those below the poverty line), as well as the total number of persons below poverty.
There is a clear trajectory of the incidence of poverty falling from 1973 to 2012. In fact, since India began collecting data on poverty, the incidence of poverty has always fallen, consistently. It was 54.9% in 1973-4; 44.5% in 1983-84; 36% in 1993-94 and 27.5% in 2004-05.
This was in accordance with the Lakdawala poverty line (which was lower than the Tendulkar poverty line), named after a distinguished economist, then a member of the Planning Commission.
Methodology
- In 2011, it was decided in the Planning Commission, that the national poverty line will be raised in accordance with the recommendations of an expert group chaired by the late Suresh Tendulkar (then professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics).
- That is the poverty line we use in estimating poverty. As it happens, this poverty line was comparable at the time to the international poverty line (estimated by the World Bank), of $1.09 (now raised to $1.90 to account for inflation) person per day.
Based on the Tendulkar poverty line, the poverty estimates for 2004-05 and 2011-12 are to be found in the Planning Commission’s own estimates using the CES of those years. Hence, it was extended the 2011-12 poverty line for each State and used the consumption expenditure reported by the PLFS to estimate a consistent poverty head count ratio (i.e., incidence of poverty in the population) as well as the absolute number of the poor.
In the absence of CES data, the PLFS can be used to estimate the incidence of poverty. It also collects the household monthly per capita consumption expenditure data based on the Mixed Recall Period methodology.
Similar to the CES, the PLFS (PLFS annual report, 2019-20, page 6) also asks the household questions about expenses on health, clothing and bedding, education, footwear and consumer durables for a 365 day recall period — prior to the day of the survey; but for non-durable consumption goods/services — including expenses on food, housing and conveyance, etc. — its question expects a recall period of 30 days prior to the day of survey.
An urban and rural rise
- What is stunning is that for the first time in India’s history of estimating poverty, there is a rise in the incidence of poverty since 2011-12.
- The important point is that this is consistent with the NSO’s CES data for 2017-18 that was leaked. The leaked data showed that rural consumption between 2012 and 2018 had fallen by 8%, while urban consumption had risen by barely 2%.
- Since the majority of India’s population (certainly over 65%) is rural, poverty in India is also predominantly rural. Remarkably, by 2019-20, poverty had increased significantly in both the rural and urban areas, but much more so in rural areas (from 25% to 30%).
- It is also for the first time since the estimation of poverty began in India on a consistent basis, that the absolute number of poor has risen: from 217 million in 2012 to 270 million in 2019-20 in rural areas; and from 53 million to 71 million in the urban areas; or a total increase of the absolute poor of about 70 million.
It is important here to recall two facts: between 1973 and 1993, the absolute number of poor had remained constant (at about 320 million poor), despite a significant increase in India’s total population.
Between 1993 and 2004, the absolute number of poor fell by a marginal number (18 million) from 320 million to 302 million, during a period when the GDP growth rate had picked up after the economic reforms.
It is for the first time in India’s history since the CES began that we have seen an increase in the absolute numbers of the poor, between 2012-13 and 2019-20.
The second fact is that for the first time ever, between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the number of the poor fell, and that too by a staggering 133 million, or by over 19 million per year.
This was accounted for by what has come to be called India’s ‘dream run’ of growth: over 2004 and 2015, the GDP growth rate had averaged 8% per annum — a 10-year run that was not sustained thereafter. By contrast, not only has the incidence of poverty increased since then, but the absolute increase in poverty is totally unprecedented.
The contributory factors
The reasons for increased poverty since 2013 are not far to seek. While the economy maintained some growth momentum till 2015, the demonetisation followed by introduction of Goods and Services Tax, both delivered body blows to the unorganised sector and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
The economic slowdown followed. None of the four engines of growth was firing after that. Private investment fell from 31% inherited by the new government, to 28% of GDP by 2019-20. Public expenditure was constrained by a silent fiscal crisis.
Exports, which had never fallen in absolute dollar terms for a quarter century since 1991, actually fell below the 2013-14 level ($315 billion) for five years. Consumption stagnated and household savings rates fell.
Joblessness increased to a 45-year high by 2017-18 (by the usual status), and youth (15-29 years of age) saw unemployment triple from 6% to 18% between 2012 and 2018.
Real wages did not increase for casual or regular workers over the same period, hardly surprising when job seekers were increasing but jobs were not at anywhere close to that rate. Hence, consumer expenditure fell, and poverty increased.
Poverty is expected to rise further during the COVID-19 pandemic after the economy has contracted.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.