Poverty and Inequality

Team Report for Global

Perspectives Term I

Created by Advaith, Satvik, Shubbham

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 Special Thanks to:

Mr. Ramesh Reddy M., I.P.S, Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration),

Hyderabad.

Mr. Prateek Jain, I.A.S., Addl. Collector, Rangareddy Dist.

Mr. Rajeshwar Reddy, Director

Mr. Chandrakath Reddy, I.A.S.

Dr. V. Narasimha Charyulu, Secretary Telangana Legislature

Mr. Srinivas Reddy, Zonal Commissioner, G.H.M.C.

Mr. T. Prasad, Founder Akshaya Vidya (NGO)

Mr. Durga, Operations Manager, Akshaya Vidya (NGO)

Mr. Sridhar, Operations Manager, Akshaya Vidya (NGO)

Ms. Pousami Basu, I.A.S, Director M.H.A., Govt. of India

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 Websites Referred

www2.gnb.ca
un.org
borgenproject.org
humanrightscareers.org
interaction.org
jkcc.ac.in
cambridge.org
legaldictionary.net
wikipedia.com
tsss.ca
chlamberonline.com
worldpopulationreview.com
deccanchronicle.com
thehindu.com
indianoblinepages.com
worldbank.org
Nas Daily
yourarticlelibrary.com
unglobalcompact.org
globalissues.org
compassion.com
borgenproject.org
vox.com
blogspot.com
wikipedia.org
sootoday.com
webstockreview.net

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What is poverty?

Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including
food, clothing, and shelter.

But, Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources
to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and
malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social
discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in
decision-making.

Substandard housing, homelessness, inadequate nutrition, food insecurity,

inadequate child care, lack of access to health care, unsafe neighborhoods,
domestic violence, child labor, disease under-resourced schools, and
impoverishment which then lead to crime are some adverse effects of
poverty.

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What is inequality ?

Inequality is the unfair situation in society when some people have more
resources, opportunities, access to power, money, etc. than other people.

Income gap, gender inequality, health care, social class, profession, race
and castes are some of the ways in which people are treated unequally.

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What are the reasons for poverty and inequality?

● Lack of employment
● Lack of education
● War/ Civil Conflict
● Climate Change
● Lack of Infrastructure
● Lack of Government support

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 Local Perspective on Poverty and Inequality
(Hyderabad)

The current population of Hyderabad is 1,05,34,000 in Hyderabad. 13% of

the population or 1.7 million people are below the poverty line, many of
these people stay in the many tiny slums.

Despite all of this, the situation of poverty in Hyderabad is much better

compared to many other metropolitan cities in India such as Patna,
Lucknow, and Mumbai. Hyderabad has been very successful in greatly
reducing poverty from 45% in 1993 to just 13% in 2022.

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 National Perspective on Poverty and Inequality
(India)

The current population of India is approximately 1.4 billion, out of this, 22%
or 270 million people are below the poverty line. The condition of these
people in poverty is so bad that around 90% of Indians below the poverty
line don’t have electricity and tap water connections; most of them don’t
even have access to basic sanitation.

The world’s largest slum, Dharavi, in Mumbai, Maharashtra, is spread

across 520 acres and is home to more than 1 million people most of whom
are below the poverty line.

Uttar Pradesh is the state with the highest number of people in poverty with
60 million people, which is twice as high as any other state in India.

The above picture demonstrates inequality in India; a rich neighborhood is right next to a slum.

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India is one of the poorest countries in the world. Many Indian people do
not get two meals a day. They do not have good houses to live in. Their
children do not get proper schooling. All this is because the population is
increasing way more than the resources available. Furthermore, there is
an unequal distribution of wealth. As a result, the poor people are often
exploited by the wealthy communities. The growing population, the poor
agricultural practices, the gap between the rich and the poor,
corruption, black money, etc. make India poor.

But, the above graph shows a steep decline in poverty in India due to the
above collective efforts by the government and other organizations to
provide special schemes and employment for the poor.

The accelerating economic growth of India has also played its part in
indirectly reducing India’s poverty.

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 Global Perspective on Poverty and Inequality

Out of the 8 billion population 700 million people or more than 10% of the
global population, earn less than 1.90$ a day. Around 84% of these people
are concentrated in the counties in the Sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia.

Around 1 billion people globally don’t have access to water, electricity and
basic sanitation. 300 million children don’t attend school / college due to
poverty, this is why 90% of people in poverty are illiterate.

The income of the poorest 40% of the population is equal to just 5% of the
global income, on the other hand, the income of the richest 20% of the
global population is equal to 75% of the global income.

Improvements in Global Poverty:

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There has been such great progress in reducing poverty in the last few
decades that the number of people below the poverty line has decreased
from 36% in 1985 to 10% in 2015.

Due to this, there has been a significant increase in life expectancy and
children attending school/college which in turn resulted in an increase in
the literacy rate. People started to spend money on their comforts and
luxuries more than ever due to a great increase in income. Crime rates
have also gone down due to job security.

The above graph shows great improvement in poverty in different

parts of the world, due to their thriving economies, industrialization to
provide job opportunities and not to mention, and the huge efforts put
in by different governments to provide schemes for the development
of people financially unequal to others. Many non-profit organizations
such as The World Bank and Oxfam International are working towards
beating poverty. Also, many philanthropists are making huge
donations in order to improve the conditions of the millions of
financially backward people worldwide.

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 Primary Research

For primary research, we have surveyed 22 families among 4

major slums of Hyderabad, these are Borabanda, Hitech City,
Rasoolpura, and Singareni Colony. We have also surveyed 3
families living in huts on the roadside.

Here are our findings:

Income: The average income of each working person is Rs. 360 per day.
Most people are paid per month. Each person works for an average time of
around 10 hours per day. They over-work but get underpaid. Most of the
people work as sweepers, construction workers, and drivers.

Family: Each family consists of 5 people on average with 2 earning

members and 3 dependents. This means that a wage of Rs. 700 earned by
2 family members should be sufficient for the entire family. The average size
of each house a family stays in is around 125 sq ft.

Education: Out of the 53 children we were told about, 48 children attend

school/college i.e. 90% of the children attend school/college.

Basic Amenities: 13/25 (52%) houses

have access to water; 14/25 (56%) have
access to electricity; 21/25 (84%)
have a bathroom in their homes.

We were glad to find out that 21 of the 25

families we surveyed were satisfied with
the quality of their life.

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 Important Points from Interviews

Basic idea on the condition of poverty in Hyderabad.

The condition of poverty in Hyderabad is better compared to similar
cosmopolitan cities. We can say this as the majority of Hyderabad has
access to electricity, tap water, basic sanitation and other basic facilities, but,
nevertheless in some places all these basic amenities are being denied due
to poverty.

-Mr. Prateek Jain, I.A.S.,

Addl. Collector, Rangareddy Dist.

How poverty leads to inequality?

Since poverty is about not having the affordability for basic necessities, it
causes inequality due to lack of opportunities. Furthermore, people in
poverty may be driven to an even worse state of poverty where inequality
among the most basic amenities for life arises.

-Mr. Prateek Jain, I.A.S.,

Addl. Collector, Rangareddy Dist.

What are the main causes of poverty in Hyderabad?

The opportunities available in Hyderabad do not meet its increasing
population due the the migration of people from all over the country. The
resources of Hyderabad not being able to suffice for its huge population, is
one of the root causes of poverty in Hyderabad.

-Mr. Srinivas Reddy,

Zonal Commissioner, (G.H.M.C.)

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What are the activities taken up that are very helpful in reducing
poverty?
The government is actively working towards reducing poverty by providing
2BHK housing, drinking water, food grains and pensions. The government
also supports self-help groups by financing cottage industries.

-Mr. Srinivas Reddy,

Zonal Commissioner, (G.H.M.C.)

-Mr. Rajeshwar Reddy,

Director S.E.R.P.

What are the main causes for the reduction of poverty in Hyderabad,
since the past few years?
The number of job opportunities in Hyderabad have significantly increased
due to industrialisation, this caused unemployment to decrease. Due to
subsidized public transportation systems, the cost of transportation has also
decreased due to which, people can travel to different places for work.
These are the main reasons for the huge decrease in poverty.

-Mr. Rajeshwar Reddy,

Director S.E.R.P.

Will we ever be able to completely eradicate poverty?

It would not be appropriate to say that poverty would be eradicated
completely. However, given the unstinted efforts put in by the government to
address the larger issues concerning poverty, I am sure poverty will be
eradicated to a large extent.

-Dr. V. Narasimha Charyulu,

Secretary Telangana Legislature.

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 Research Conclusion

We have seen that poverty and inequality are major problems here. Even
though people are satisfied with the way they are living, they do not know
how this will affect their safety and future generations. In other slums like
these, the situation is the same.

There are worse slums in the world, we can only imagine how badly in
poverty they are and how unequally they are treated. As the situation there
is many times worse, the majority of people do not enjoy their lives.

Aim and Outcome

Aim: Improve the lives of people living in Low Income Areas/ Slums.

Our solution to the problem of poverty and inequality is that the thousands of
people in poverty in a particular locality should work with unity and face
problems together. They need to have leaders for each field, these leaders
will guide everyone else in the area thus, contributing to their development.
The leaders should represent the slums and show their problems to the
authorities. They also need to purchase essentials together, so that they can
get them at a lower price by collective bargaining power.

People willing to help the slum dwellers must provide lessons and skills in
order to equip them with skills and knowledge to enable them to turn into
skilled workers who are paid much more. This will in turn help them to
prosper in the future and reduce poverty. We should also provide them with
financial and material aid in difficult times.

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 Team Collaboration Report

Throughout this project we worked smoothly as a team and helped each

other with all tasks. Though we had a lot of complications, of which many
were difficult to solve, we still were able to coordinate and make this project
successful.

Our team's contribution was crucial to the success of this project. As a team,
we enjoyed every minute of working on this project.

This project on Poverty & Inequality, is our first major project in Global
Perspectives. There may be quite a lot of errors in this report, but, we have
done the best we can.

Thank you!

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