Poverty is identified in India as inability to fulfill basic needs of living. But the major question is who are the poor. How to separate poor in different categories. As some are poor, some are not very poor, some are absolutely poor etc. There are different category of poor in society. For this concept of poverty line was developed. Concept first discussed by Dadabhai Naoroji. People are divided into 2 groups which are separated by poverty line, which are as follows:-
- POOR– Poor are further classified as-
- Absolutely poor
- Very poor
- Poor
- NON-POOR– Further classified as-
- Not so poor
- Middle class
- Upper middle class
- The rich
- The very rich
- Millionaires
- Billionaries
There are more ways in which poverty is categories.
- Some people are always poor, Some are usually poor as they get some work money so these two are CHRONIC POOR.
- Some are churning poor who sometimes get some work. Some are occasionally poor who are rich but suddenly loose their jobs. These two are categorized as TRANSIENT POOR.
- Third are those who are always rich. These are NON-POOR.
To determine poverty line a lot of measures were introduced. These were minimum calorie intake of each person and monthly per capita expenditure.
But poverty is not always determined by income and consumption. There are many basic needs of living which determine poverty. These are literacy, health, sanitation and safe drinking water. So categorizing people on all these parameter is important. While defining poverty every dimensions should be measured.