As many as 13.5 crore people in the five years ended March 2021 moved out of multidimensional poverty, measured by improvements in health, education, and standard of living, with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh registering the fastest reduction, said a Niti Aayog report on Monday.
India has registered a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points in the number of India’s multidimensionally poor, from 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019-2021, according to the second edition of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
While rural areas witnessed the fastest decline in poverty, from 32.59 percent to 19.28 percent, urban areas saw a reduction in poverty, from 8.65 percent to 5.27 percent. “A record 13.5 crore people moved out of multidimensional poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21,” said the report ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023, released by Suman Bery, Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog.
The National MPI measures simultaneous deprivations across three equally weighted dimensions of health, education, and standard of living that are represented by 12 SDG-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.
Marked improvement is witnessed across all 12 indicators, Niti Aayog said, adding the report follows the Alkire-Foster methodology developed by its technical partners, the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
According to the latest update of the global MPI released by UNDP and OPHI at the University of Oxford, a total of 415 million people moved out of poverty in India within just 15 years, from 2005/2006 to 2019/2021.
The Niti report attributes the decline in poverty to the government’s dedicated focus on improving access to sanitation, nutrition, cooking fuel, financial inclusion, drinking water, and electricity. All 12 parameters of the MPI have shown marked improvements.
