Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov.26: NITI Aayog’s newly released Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) shows that Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the poorest states in India.
According to the index, 51.91 percent of Bihar’s population is impoverished, with 42.16 percent in Jharkhand and 37.79 percent in Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is ranked fourth on the index with 36.65%, while Meghalaya is ranked fifth with 32.67 percent.
Kerala (0.71%), Goa (3.76%), Sikkim (3.82%), Tamil Nadu (4.89%), and Punjab (5.59%) have the lowest poverty rates in India and are at the bottom of the ranking.
According to the report, India’s national Multidimensional Poverty Index is based on the widely recognised and robust methodology, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP).
It’s also important to note that as a measure of multidimensional poverty, it represents various and concurrent deprivation encountered by households.
India’s Multidimensional Poverty Index has three equally weighted dimensions: health, education, and standard of living.
These three dimensions are represented by 12 indicators: nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets, and bank accounts.
NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said, “The development of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index of India is an important contribution towards instituting a public policy tool which monitors multidimensional poverty, informs evidence-based and focused interventions, thereby ensuring that no one is left behind.”
He further said this baseline report of India’s first ever national Multidimensional Poverty Index measure is based on the reference period of 2015-16 of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
