For 250 mn poor, living standards get better

Close to 250 million Indians escaped multidimensional poverty in the nine years ending 2022-23, federal policy think tank Niti Aayog said on Monday, referring to an index it uses to track the various ways that economic poverty affects life.

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Multidimensional poverty uses measures of health, education and standard of living, and the development could help reduce the share of Indians deprived on this metric to single digits in 2024, the think tank said.

More than half of India's population was multidimensionally poor in 2005-06, going by National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data for that period. This fell to about a quarter of the population by 2015-16, and to 14.96% by 2019-21, Niti Aayog said, quoting a discussion paper written by member Ramesh Chand with inputs from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Reacting to the data, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X: "Very encouraging, reflecting our commitment towards furthering inclusive growth and focussing on transformative changes to our economy. We will continue to work towards all-round development and to ensure a prosperous future for every Indian."

The think tank has projected an 11.28% figure for multidimensionally poor in 2022-23 based on past trends, and expects that to fall below 10% in 2023-24.