NITI Aayog: India's poverty rates have significantly dropped in the last 9 years

According to an NITI Aayog discussion paper, India's poverty rates have sharply decreased during the past nine years. The research states that India's poverty ratio decreased from slightly over 29% in 2013–14 to 11.28% in the preceding fiscal year, and even more dramatically, from levels above 55% in 2005–06.

Additionally, from 2013–14 to 2022–2023, approximately 25 crore Indians were able to transcend poverty.

Multidimensional poverty indicators, or globally defined sustainable development goals including access to health care, education, and a higher standard of living, are used by NITI to analyze poverty in India instead of the per capita income benchmark.

The poverty headcount ratio in India has decreased

According to the NITI Aayog study, the World Bank defines the international poverty level at $2.15 per day to quantify monetary poverty. According to the most recent World Bank data, "the poverty headcount ratio in India has decreased from 18.73% in 2015 to 11.9% in 2021."

However, 2021 was also the year when the COVID epidemic wreaked devastation around the world, with India at the epicenter, with the Delta version killing lakhs of Indians.

According to the NITI research, because some of the National Family Health Survey-5 data were obtained before the pandemic, the estimates presented in this article may not completely capture the impact of COVID-19 on the economy or the consequences of future government initiatives.

However, out of the 12 criteria used to assess poverty or deprivation—such as nutrition, maternal health, child and adolescent mortality, schooling, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, housing, electricity, assets, and bank accounts—NITI Aayog reports that cooking fuel, with a deprivation rate of 43.9%, and housing, with a deprivation rate of 41.37%, consistently exhibit the most significant levels of deprivation. In contrast, child mortality, electricity, and bank accounts maintain the lowest levels of deprivation, all below 4%.

Government initiatives remained successful in improving the quality of life

Hence, the report explicitly indicates that India has achieved significant progress in improving the quality of life for millions of its citizens through government initiatives such as PM POSHAN, Ujjwala Yojana, and Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), Swacch Bharat Mission, Jal Jeevan Mission, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, and PM Awas Yojana, all of which are having a measurable impact.

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The NITI report also notes that the most substantial reduction in the proportion of multidimensionally poor people has occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan. Bihar recorded the most significant decrease in the headcount of multidimensionally poor, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.