Proportion of poor dips to 14.9%, 135 mn pulled out of poverty

NITI Aayog on Monday said 135 million Indians moved out of multidimensional poverty in five years with the proportion of poor in the country down from 24.8% to 14.9% between 2015-16 and 2019-21, on the back of improvements in nutrition, years of schooling, sanitation and subsidised cooking fuel.

Uttar Pradesh registered the highest decline in the number of poor with 34.3 million exiting poverty followed by Bihar (22.5 million), Madhya Pradesh (13.5 million), Rajasthan (10.8 million) and West Bengal (9.2 million), showed the National Multidimensional Poverty Index, released by the Aayog.

The UNDP had in its global MPI report, released last week, said 415 million people exited multidimensional poverty in India in 15 years, from 2005-06 to 2019-21, with the incidence of poverty falling from 55.1% in 2005-06 to 16.4% in 2019-21.

Based on the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), the Aayog's national MPI represents India's progress in reducing multidimensional poverty between the two surveys-NFHS-4 (2015-16) and NFHS-5 (2019-21). The first baseline index, developed by the Aayog on the basis of NFHS-4, was released in November 2021.

According to the index, the rural areas witnessed the fastest decline in poverty from 32.5% to 19.2% while the urban areas saw a reduction in poverty from 8.65% to 5.27%.

The national MPI measures simultaneous deprivations across the three equally weighted dimensions of health, education and standard of living that are represented by 12 Sustainable Development Goals-aligned indicators.

These include nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank accounts.

Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, MPI value has nearly halved from 0.117 to 0.066 and the intensity of poverty reduced from 47% to 44%, thereby setting India on path of achieving the SDG Target 1.2 (of reducing multidimensional poverty by at least half) much ahead of the stipulated timeline of 2030, the Aayog said.

According to Aayog, flagship programmes such as the Poshan Abhiyan, Anaemia Mukt Bharat have contributed to reduced deprivations in health.

Initiatives such as Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) have improved sanitation across the country, it said.

The provision of subsidised cooking fuel through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has positively transformed lives, with a 14.6 percentage points improvement in cooking fuel deprivations, it added.

The Aayog further said that initiatives like Saubhagya, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) and Samagra Shiksha have also played a major role in significantly reducing multidimensional poverty in the country.

Consistent implementation across a diverse set of programmes and initiatives that have strong inter-linkages has led to significant reduction in deprivations across multiple indicators, it added.