NEW DELHI, March 16: One quarter of humanity or 1.6 billion people still live in absolute poverty, when world community has the resource and capacity to completely wipe out penury and hunger, consumer rights activists said.The Consumers International (CI), a London-based coalition of world consumer groups has put across "Poverty: rallying for change" as the theme on the occasion of the World Consumer Rights Day which was observed on Sunday."Let us remind the world community that one of the rights of consumers in the UN guidelines for consumer protection (adopted by the General Assembly in April, 1989) is the right to basic needs - food, clothing, shelter and health care," Bijon Mishra, advisor to Consumer Coordination Council (CCC), a national alliance of consumer organisations, said.
The poverty clock conceived by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggest 47 people every minute enter the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger.
Consumer groups throughout the world have realised that theyhave an important role to play in eradicating poverty. "Consumer rights of choice, safety, information and redressal of grievances on one hand mean little to people living in absolute poverty, but the right to basic needs - the first of the consumer rights - is fundamental," Mishra said.
The UN Human Development Report show the world-wide aggregate of poor people is increasing at the rate of 1.88 per cent which is equal to the annual population growth of the developing world. If one includes those living in "relative poverty", the poor population across the globe amounts to 3.3 billion.
The report has shown poverty cannot be reduced only by economic growth. "Poverty and inequalities continue to persist in countries which have shown strong economic growth," Roopa Vajpeyi of Delhi-based consumer group `Voice' said.
Consumer activists say that despite current economic turmoil in South-East Asian nations, broad-based growth strategies and ample use of labour and investment in training and education havehelped these countries to reduce poverty significantly.
Estimates by experts on the extent of poverty in India reveal that it varies between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of total population. Various government sponsored schemes of poverty alleviation including integrated rural development programme, national rural employment programme and Jawahar Rozgar Yojana have, however, brought a decline in the poverty ratio by 10 per cent by the end of the 80s.
"The grim reality is that only five per cent of funds allocated for poverty eradication reach the poor," Mishra lamented. The consumption pattern in India shows the lowest 20 per cent of the rural households account for only 10 per cent of the total consumption in rural areas, while the top 20 per cent (including urban households) account for 40 per cent of the total consumption .
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
