Rural India drives drop in poverty count over 6 years

Survey says nearly 135 mn have emerged from multidimensional poverty

- SOHINI DAS, ANJALI SINGH & SANKET KOUL

An estimated 135 million Indians An poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21, according to the Economic Survey 2023-24. This substantial progress is underscored by a sharp decline in the national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which nearly halved from 0.117 in 2015-16 to 0.066 in 2019-21.

This trend is primarily driven by improvements in rural India, with the most major gains in states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

Uttar Pradesh saw the most notable reduction in poverty, with 34.3 million people escaping multidimensional poverty during this period. Notably, the number of states with less than 10 per cent of their populations living in multidimensional poverty doubled from seven in 2016 to 14 in 2021.

Expenditure on social services has increased from 6.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017-18 to 7.8 per cent of GDP in 2023-24 (FY24).