What is poverty line? Write about the group vulnerable to poverty in our country.
Poverty line is an imaginary line used by any country to determine its poverty. It varies from time to time, place to place and country to country. In India, a subsistence level or minimum level of food requirement (as determined by its calorie value), clothing, footwear, fuel, lighting, educational and medical requirements etc are determined for estimating poverty line.
Poverty among social groups and economic categories varies widely in India. Here, socially vulnerable groups include the households of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Economically vulnerable groups comprise rural landless labour households and urban casual labour households. During the last few years, all these groups except the Scheduled Tribes group have witnessed a decline in poverty. In poor families all suffer but some like women, elderly people and female infants suffer more and are regarded as the poorest of the poor in our society.