TRENDS IN INCIDENCE OF POVERTY AMONG SCHEDULED CASTES: THE CASE OF KARNATAKA

Historically, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in India have been the victims of social exclusion and marginalization along with living under poverty. The SCs in Karnataka form a sizable part with 17 per cent of the State’s population and more than 75 per cent of them living in rural areas. They have continued to be socially, educationally and economically backward even today. Due to various constitutional provisions and welfare programmes for SCs, the incidence of poverty is declining in percentage terms but a large number of SC population still continue to be poor. A large number of studies have focused on the issue of poverty in general, but not many studies relating to incidence of poverty across social groups in India and Karnataka. In this backdrop, the present paper is to analyse the trends in prevalence of poverty among SCs in Karnataka at macto perspective.


Introduction
The Scheduled Castes (SCs) in Karnataka form a sizeble part with 17 per cent of the State's population and more than 75 per cent of them living in rural areas. As per census reports, the SC population in the State has increased from 85.64 lakh in 2001 to 104.75 lakh in 2011, registering a decennial growth rate of 22.32 per cent. The SC population constitutes 17.15 per cent of the total population of the State. The highest proportion of SC population is returned from Kolar District with 30.32 per cent, followed by Chamarajanagar District with 25.42 per cent. The least proportion of Scheduled Caste population is recorded in the coastal district of Udupi (6.41 per cent) and preceded by Dakshina Kannada (7.09 per cent) District. The SCs are known by different names in different parts of the state and comprise many sub-castes and communities. Presently, there are 101 sub castes among SCs, Adi Karnataka, Madiga, Banjara, Bhovi, Holeya, Adi Dravida and Bhambi together constitute 85.0 per cent of the SC population of the state. Adi Karnataka is numerically the largest SC with a population of 2,199,170, constituting 25.7 per cent of the state's SC population. They are followed by Madiga (15.2 per cent), Banjara (11.6 per cent), Bhovi (11.2 per cent), Holeya (7.5 per cent), Adi Dravida (7.2 per cent) and Bhambi (6.6 per cent).
The SC community is marginalized social group in Karnataka. They have continued to be socially, educationally and economically backward even today. Due to various constitutional provisions and welfare programmes for SCs, the incidence of poverty is declining in percentage terms but a large number of SC population still continue to be poor. Poverty is concentrated among socially disadvantaged sections of the populations such as SCs and Scheduled Tribes (Thorat and Mahamalik, 2007;De Haan and Dubey, 2005; Newman and Thorat, 2009 andGoI 2012). Karnataka is no exception to this general trend. The incidence of poverty among SCs in Karnataka was 33.2 per cent in 2011-12 while it was 21.2 per cent for overall. Against the above backdrop, the present paper is to analyse the trends in prevalence of poverty among SCs in Karnataka at macto perspective with the following g objectives.

Aim of the Paper and Data Sources
The main objectives of the study are; 1) to understand the concept and measurement of poverty in the Indian context. 2) to analyse the trends in prevalence of poverty among SCs in Karnataka at macro perspective.
The paper is prepared exclusively based on the secondary sources of information. The major information sources are obtained from Census documents, Planning Commission and NSSO reports, articles, etc.

Concept of Poverty, Measurement of Poverty and Identification of Poor
The concept of poverty is complex dynamic and multi-dimensional. It varies across the time, space and social stratification. Commonly, the term poverty is defined as the inability of a certain section of the society to obtain minimum income to meet the basic needs of life such as food, cloth, shelter, health care and education. Identification of the poor, measurement, and estimating the magnitude of poverty have received considerable attention among academicians and policy makers across the world. Identification of the poor is important for Central and State Governments to implement various welfare programmes and schemes. Before the identification of the poor, the question is how to measure the poverty of an individual or family and what are the indicators to be considered to assess poverty. The debate is still on regarding the concept of poverty and its measurement. According to Sen, poverty is a complex phenomenon that requires a clear analysis from various dimensions. Amartya Sen (1997) has characterised poverty as a "capability deprivation", where a person lacks the 'subsistence freedoms' to lead the kind of life. The concept of poverty must be understood with reference to the circumstances and the level of progress of a country. It varies across regions and has different faces, shapes, and magnitudes. Poverty is generally defined (from various sources) as the inability to secure a minimal level of living. In other words, the person or household who fails to obtain minimum income to meet the basic needs of life such as food, cloth, shelter, healthcare, and education. The World Bank in its studies, defines poverty as "the inability to attain a minimum standard of living". Martin Ravallion of the World Bank in various reports defines poverty using the 'dollar a day' benchmark. Amartya Sen suggests that needs-fulfilment is the more useful measure than use of any kind of money-metric measure of poverty. Sen in his book 'The Idea of Justice' argues that income approach is the wrong tool to measure poverty as it considers people earning less than a certain amount annually as poor, which is not an accurate measure of how well people live (Sen, 2009).
The . Based on these criteria, the Planning Commission has been estimating the incidence of poverty at the national and state level by using the large sample survey of consumer expenditure data of the National Sample Survey (NSS). The incidence of poverty has been measured by the percentage of people living below the poverty line (known as the poverty or headcount ratio).

Trends in Incidence of Poverty
A large proportion of India's population live in abject poverty and this is confirmed from various sources. The data on the extent of poverty in India remains much debated and is very complicated. The Planning Commission in 2004-05 has estimated that 28.5 per cent of the country's population was poor. Table-1    The Incidence of poverty has become a major concern in India and also in Karnataka. Karnataka is the poorest among the southern States (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala) according to the data on poverty recently released by an Expert Committee set up by the Planning Commission. The committee has estimated that a little over one-third of Karnataka's population lived below the poverty line in 2004-05. The committee has revised rural poverty levels in India in 2004-05, from 28.3 per cent to 41.8 per cent, a significant upward revision. The committee established the poverty line for 2004-05 at 417.8 per capita a month for rural Karnataka and at 588.10 for urban areas of the State. The poverty line implies a minimum consumption expenditure level required by a person to procure a standardised basket of goods and services to satisfy basic needs. The report reveals that the head-count ratio of people below the poverty line in Karnataka is far higher than in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. In fact, at 33.9 per cent, the poverty ratio is only marginally lower than the national average of 37.2 per cent in 2004-05. As per revised estimation of Tednulkar Committee for the year 2011-12, the rural poverty level is 24.5 per cent and urban poverty is 15.3 per cent in Karnataka (Table 2). Data clerly shows that both rural and urban poverty has contentiously declined in Karnataka & India during the period 2004-05 to 2011-12.

Trends in Poverty level among SCs in Karnataka as per Tendulkar estimation
The Planning Commission has updated the poverty lines and poverty ratios based on the recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee report by using Household Consumer Expenditure Survey data of the National Sample Survey reports. Suresh Tendulkar modifications were made considering other basic requirements of the poor, such as housing, clothing, education, health, sanitation, conveyance, fuel etc. thus making the poverty line more realistic. Figure-1 Table-3. In 2011-12, the poverty is 21.2 per cent with substantially high incidence in rural areas (24.5 per cent) as compared to the urban areas (15.3 per cent). In the state, three groups namely SCs, STs and Muslims have substantially high incidence of poverty as compared to that of Hindu High Caste (HHC) and Hindu Other Backward Castes (HOBC). This is also true in the case of both rural and urban areas. The poverty among SCs, STs and Muslims accounts for 33.2 per cent, 31.5 per cent and 26.5 per cent, respectively. The proportion of poor among HOBC and HHC is relatively low, particularly in urban areas. It is 17.8 per cent among HOBC and 13.7 per cent among HHC in the state. The poverty in rural areas is 20 per cent and 19 per cent respectively and 11.6 and 7 per cent respectively in urban areas. It indicates that poverty has remained a chronic condition for almost 33 per cent of SCs in the state and it is highest among rural SCs (37.1 per cent). The incidence of poverty is not only higher but also chronic among them, despite the implementation of various poverty alleviation programmes. The incidence of poverty is declining among all social groups in India. The incidence of poverty declining significantly among all the social groups, but SCs/STs, they continued to experience a greater incidence of poverty, as compared to others.   The incidence of poverty by household type across social and religious groups is presented in the Table-4. It has been observed tht the lowest poverty is among HHC households among all the household types. In most of the household type, the highest poverty is encountered by SC, STs and Muslims. The casual labour household have the highest poverty ratio (35.7 per cent) which is more than four time higher than that of regular salaried households (8.1 per cent) and more than double of that self-employed households (19.9 per cent). Among casual labour households, the highest poverty is among STs (50.6 per cent) followed by SCs and Muslims (more than 37 per cent for both). Among self-employed households, the highest poverty is encountered by the SC households (37.4 per cent) followed by Muslims (25.3 per cent) and STs (19.5 per cent, and among regular salaried, the poverty is almost double among SCs (15.7 per cent) that the average level (8.1 per cent). Note: 1) Self-employed (SE)-Self-employed in agriculture and non-agriculture in rural areas and self-employed in urban areas.

Conclusions
Estimates of poverty among social groups clearly show that though the incidence of poverty declined significantly among SCs and they continued to experience a greater incidence of poverty, as compared to others. There have been few studies conducted on poverty of SCs in Karnataka. A large sample survey conducted by Vishwanatha (2013) in Karnataka observed that 93 per cent of total surveyed SC households in the state still living under poverty line and major source of income to SC families is labour wage, mainly agriculture labour. Vishwanatha (2009) expressed that the reason for high incidence of poverty among Dalits is due to lack of asset ownership and productive resources. Maruti's study in Karnataka, based on the census data shows that SC populations are concentrated as agricultural labourers and this trend continues over decades across census periods (Maruti, 2006). Ramakrishnappa and Vishwanatha (2015) in their study based on secondary analysis found that the SCs confronted with multiple deprivations such as high level of poverty and unemployment, landlessness, and lack of institutional credit support. A micro level study by Biradar (2008) in sample villages of two districts in Karnataka reveals that the incidence of poverty was found to be higher in the case of SCs/STs as compared to others. The study concludes that lack of productive assets (land), limited occupational diversification, higher illness prevalence rate, higher incidence of child labour, labour market discrimination (in terms of low rates in the rural non-farm occupations), and limited access to social security schemes attributed to a greater incidence of poverty among SC/STs as compared to Others.
As per Agricultural Census (2012) of Karnataka, the average size of operational holdings by SCs is less at 1.18 hectares, while for others it was 1.68 heactares. Most of the people from SC category are either landless or hold marginal and small land in rural areas which is not enough to survive their livelihoods and live in poverty. The implementation of on-going poverty alleviation programme should be streamlined to ensure equitable reach out to SC community. There is need to initiate special time-bound programmes by Government of Karnataka for landless rural SCs by distributing productive land to them in order to tackle the the poverty. A large number of SCs were found to be living under poverty syndrome and hence, government should encourage SC population and facilitate to start their own non-farm enterprises.