Rural Poverty Alleviation: India's Experiences and Needed Strategy

The paper primarily focuses the procedures of poverty alleviation in rural India. It has been discussed under two heads such as direct and indirect measures. Indirect measures mostly focus the achievement of economic growth and thus, alleviate rural poverty indirectly. The factors that have been discussed under this measure are agricultural growth, rural non-farm sector, rural infrastructure, governance, women empowerment, population growth and Public Distribution System (PDS). Direct measure, on the contrary, focuses sectoral and direct employment programmes that highlight the alleviation of rural poverty directly. These direct measures are discussed here in the form of self-employment, wage-employment and infrastructural development programmes. It finally concludes that there is need of strong governance along with participation of private sector, panchayats, Non Government Organisations (NGOs), Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) to implement the above measures effectively for alleviating rural poverty in the Indian economy.