In a breakthrough for country’s fight against poverty, the Modi government has made substantial progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty. According to the World Bank’s latest report, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty in India has seen a dramatic decline over the last decade, from 27.1 per cent in 2011 to 2.6 per cent in 2023.
The report hailed India’s improvements across both monetary and non-monetary measures of poverty, terming “it is one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.” As per the report, the proportion of people leaving below the lower-middle-income poverty line fell from 57.7 per cent to 16.1 per cent. The poverty is likely to decline further as World Bank projections indicate that poverty rate could further fall from 14.2 per cent in 2026 to 12.1 per cent by 2028.
The decline in poverty has been significantly aided by India’s free food distribution programs. The government’s free and subsidized food transfer initiatives have had a direct impact on reducing poverty, especially narrowing the gap between rural and urban poverty. The report also attributed the decline to strong consumption growth, rising employment particularly among women, various social projects.
Non-monetary poverty has also declined, as per the report, the poverty rate measured through Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s Multidimensional Poverty Index fell from 53.8 per cent in 2005-06 to 16.4 per cent in 2019-21. Meanwhile, the report highlighted that around 57 per cent of India’s poor population is from the belt stretching from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal.
Though the employment increased between 2017 and 2023, the youth unemployment rose from 14.6 per cent to 15.9 per cent between the first quarters of FY26 and FY27, particularly among rural young women.
The World Bank’s findings show that India has made remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty over the last decade. According to the World Bank’s “Poverty and Shared Prosperity Brief,” the percentage of people living on less than $2.15 a day (extreme poverty) dropped from 16.2 per cent in 2011-12 to just 2.3 per cent in 2022-23, which means that around 171 million people have risen above this poverty line. Rural areas have seen a significant drop in extreme poverty, from 18.4 per cent to 2.8 per cent, while urban areas have seen a decrease from 10.7% to 1.1%. This has reduced the rural-urban poverty gap from 7.7 per cent to just 1.7 per cent, reflecting a 16 per cent annual decline in the rural-urban divide.
–With ANI Inputs
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