Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Multidimensional poverty in India, which apart from food covers access to health and education facilities, is estimated to have declined from 29.17 per cent in 2013-14 to 11.28 per cent in 2022-23 — indicating that 24.82 crore people have escaped poverty during this period according to figures compiled by NITI Aayog, Minister of State for Planning, Rao Inderjit Singh, informed Parliament on July 23. According to another report, ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023’, released by NITI Aayog, the proportion of population in multidimensional poverty declined from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent between 2015-16 and 2019- 21, indicating that about 13.5 crore people have escaped poverty during the period, the minister stated in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
Inderjit Singh said that in 2021, the Government developed a comprehensive index known as National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to measure poverty that captures overlapping deprivations in dimensions such as health, education and standard of living, covering 12 indicators namely, nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, bank accounts and assets. It measures both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived. The second edition of the index was released in 2023.
The Government has also highlighted that it provided tap water to 16 crore homes and built 5 crore houses for poor families, as it has been working to implement schemes for the economic development of the country and raise the standard of living of the people.
