Praising India’s momentous progress in reducing multidimensional poverty, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest report has said that the country has halved its Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to 27.5% from 54.7% between 2005-06 and 2015-16.
As per the report, 271 million people in India moved out of poverty in last ten years. Jharkhand state was at top among all states in reducing multidimensional poverty, followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Nagaland. However, the states such as Delhi, Kerala and Goa have low incidences of multidimensional poverty.
Further, the report noted that 364 million Indians still continue to experience acute deprivations in health, nutrition, schooling and sanitation, despite good progress in reducing the poverty index. It further added that more than half of India’s poor are living in just four states--Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and these states accounted for 196 million MPI poor people.