What are the fundamental causes of poverty and hunger? What government schemes have been implemented to eliminate poverty and hunger?

Fundamental causes

• Low and irregular earnings from casual labour and tiny farms leave households without a buffer when prices or illness hit.
• Unequal land, caste, gender, and region mean that growth does not reach the same plate; hunger is often a distribution failure, not a national grain shortage.
• Poor sanitation, health, and education trap families in low productivity, so poverty reproduces across generations.
• Climate shocks, conflict displacement, and leaky last-mile delivery turn a bad season into chronic undernutrition.

Schemes to eliminate poverty and hunger

• The National Food Security Act, 2013, and later free-grain windows such as PMGKAY give a legal or administrative cereal floor to priority households.
• MGNREGA, 2005, supplies rural wage work; DAY-NRLM and PMAY-G attack livelihood and housing poverty.
• PM POSHAN, POSHAN Abhiyaan, ICDS, and Antyodaya Anna Yojana target children, mothers, and the poorest eaters, not only the BPL list.

Limits

• Cesses, targeting errors, and nutrition quality (protein, micronutrients) still sit outside a cereal ration, so hunger can persist after a full PDS bag.