Regional inequality, growth and poverty

Poverty is a phenomenon, which is complex in origin as well as in its manifestations. It is a great moral and social challenge. It is not a recent phenomenon in India. Ample evidence of its incidence among the masses is found in the literary history and descriptive accounts of pre-colonial and colonial times. Poverty is such a situation where a section of the society could not meet even the minimum requirements of living. In India, it is found that the problem of poverty is an enormous one and it is also observed that largest number of world poor live here. Since independence, each plan document has been making big pronouncement for the removal of poverty. Yet after 67 years, India is still struggling with poverty. Though the incidence of poverty has declined from 45.3 to 21.9 per cent between 1993 to 2012, the number of poor in the same period has declined from 403 million to 269 million. The poverty is still a challenge and has become a controversial issue because the process of growth is accompanied with increasing intensity of poverty.