GS Paper 2
Syllabus: Issues Relating to Poverty and Hunger
Source: IE
Context: The NITI Aayog released the ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023’.
Key highlights:
- India has registered a decline in the number of multidimensionally poor from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-2021.
- In absolute terms, ~13.5 crore Indians escaped poverty during the five-year time period.
- Still, one in seven Indians is multidimensionally poor.
What is the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)?
- With its first edition released in 2021, the project is aimed at deconstructing the Global MPI and creating a globally aligned and yet customised India MPI.
- It seeks to draw up comprehensive Reform Action Plans with the larger goal of improving India’s position in the Global MPI rankings.
- NITI Aayog is the nodal agency for the National MPI, ranking States and UTs based on their performance.
Methodology:
- It captures overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards to ascertain multidimensional poverty.
- Each of the specific parameters (under 3 broad categories) is assigned a value to calculate what is called a ‘deprivation score’.
- The deprivation score is the sum of the weighted status of all the indicators for an individual – if it is more than 0.33, only then an individual is considered multidimensionally poor.
- The primary data source to arrive at these figures was National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5).
Highlights of the National MPI Report 2023 (2nd Edition):
- Which indicators have reduced India’s multidimensional poverty? Improvements in indicators like access to cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, and bank accounts.
- Where more improvements are needed? Indicators like nutrition and access to education, where the improvement has only been marginal.
Performance of various states:
- BIMARU states: The number of people in poverty in rural areas witnessed the fastest decline (from 32.59 to 19.28%), owing to improvements in states like Bihar, UP, MP, Odisha, and Rajasthan.
- Number of states with less than 10% of people living in multidimensional poverty:
- Doubled between 2016 and 2021 from 7 (Mizoram, HP, Punjab, Sikkim, TN, Goa, and Kerala) to 14 (Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Uttarakhand).
- Except for Bihar, no other state in India has more than one-third of its population living in multidimensional poverty.
Comparing with Global MPI 2023:
- In 2005/2006, about 645 million people were in multidimensional poverty in India, with this number declining to about 370 million in 2015/2016 and 230 million in 2019/2021.
- Thus, 415 million poor people moved out of poverty from 2005/2006 to 2019/2021.
- Incidence fell from 55.1 to 16.4%.
- Deprivation in all indicators declined.
What is keeping Indians multidimensionally poor?
- Within the health category, 3 sub-indicators – nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, and maternal health – showed only moderate improvement.
- Lack of proper nutrition contributed close to 30% – the highest – in the overall calculation of India’s MPI.
- Other indicators that did not record a significant decline include lack of years of schooling, inadequate access to maternal health services and less-than-desired school attendance.
- Within the standard of living category,
- While there has been a significant improvement in access to cooking fuel, ~44% of India’s population is still deprived of it.
- While sanitation numbers have improved, over 30% of the population is deprived when it comes to sanitation services.
- Access to housing also remained to be an indicator where the improvement was only marginal. standard of living criteria.
Government’s flagship programmes:
- Health and Nutrition: Poshan Abhiyan and Anaemia Mukt Bharat have contributed to reduced deprivations in health.
- Sanitation: Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) have improved sanitation across the country.
- Cooking fuel: PM Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has positively transformed lives.
- Other initiatives: Initiatives like Saubhagya (electricity), PM Awas Yojana (housing), PM Jan Dhan Yojana (banking), and Samagra Shiksha (education).
Conclusion: Consistent implementation across a diverse set of programmes and initiatives that have strong interlinkages will lead to a further reduction in deprivations across multiple indicators.
Insta Links:
Multidimensional Poverty Index
Mains Links:
Though there have been several different estimates of poverty in India, all indicate a reduction in poverty levels over time. Do you agree? Critically examine with reference to urban and rural poverty indicators. (UPSC 2015)
