Multidimensional Poverty: NITI Aayog Report

India witnessed 13.5 crore people moving out of multidimensional poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21.

• The fastest reduction was seen in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.

About the Report

The report — ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A progress of Review 2023’ — was released by Suman Bery, Vice-Chairman, NitiAayog.

This second edition of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) represents India’s progress in reducing multidimensional poverty.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index identifies acute deprivations in health, education and standard of living by interrogating 10 indicators. MPI looks at how people experience poverty in multiple, overlapping ways.

• It is based on the latest National Family Heath Survey [NFHS-5 (2019-21)].
• It builds on the Baseline Report of India’s National MPI launched in November 2021.
• The broad methodology followed is in consonance with the global methodology.
• The National MPI measures simultaneous deprivations across the three equally weighted dimensions of:
  • health,
  • education, and
  • standard of living.
• These dimensions are represented by 12 SDG-aligned indicators.
• These indicators include:
  • nutrition,
  • child and adolescent mortality,
  • maternal health,
  • years of schooling,
  • school attendance,
  • cooking fuel,
  • sanitation,
  • drinking water,
  • electricity,
  • housing,
  • assets, and
  • bank accounts.

Findings of the Report

• A marked improvement has been witnessed across all the 12 indicators.
• According to the Report, India has registered a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points in number of India’s multidimensional poor.
• Thus, percentage of multidimensional poor has decreased from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-2021.
• The rural areas witnessed the fastest decline in poverty from 32.59% to 19.28%.
• During the same period, the urban areas saw a reduction in poverty from 8.65% to 5.27%.
• Uttar Pradesh registered the largest decline in number of poor with 3.43 crore people escaping multidimensional poverty.
• Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the MPI value has nearly halved from 0.117 to 0.066 and the intensity of poverty has reduced from 47% to 44%.
• Judging by the performance, India is on the path of achieving the SDG Target 1.2 (of reducing multidimensional poverty by at least half) much ahead of the stipulated timeline of 2030.

Government Initiatives that helped reduce MPI

India has shown improvements in all 12 parameters of the MPI. Some of the government schemes that can be attributed for such performance are as follows:

• Pradhan MantriUjjwalaYojana (PMUY)
• Saubhagya
• Pradhan MantriAwasYojana (PMAY)
• Pradhan Mantri Jan DhanYojana (PMJDY)
• SamagraShiksha
• Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)
• Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM)
• PoshanAbhiyan
• Anaemia Mukt Bharat

Source: PIB, The Hindu and undp.org