Uneven Development

Context: In 2019, the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report revealed that India had lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016. But, India’s issues of poverty and hunger are continuing.

India’s continuing issues of poverty and hunger

• Fruits of rapid economic growth were unevenly distributed: Incidence of multidimensional poverty is exponentially greater for socially marginalised sections of society.
  • Concentration of deprivation: More than half (50.6%) of scheduled tribes (STs), a third (33.3%) of scheduled castes (SCs), and over a quarter (27.2%) of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) suffered multidimensional poverty.
  • Intensity of deprivations, which is the average deprivation score among people living in multidimensional poverty, for the STs was 45.9, for the SCs 44.1, and for the OBCs 43.5.
• MPI data does not reflect recent fallouts: 2021 MPI study is based on 2015-16 survey data and, therefore, does not include the impact of major disruptive events to livelihoods since then, such as demonetisation in 2016, Covid-19-induced lockdown of 2020, and second wave of pandemic in 2021.
• Multidimensional poverty rate still remains higher:9% of Indians were multi-dimensionally poor and another 19.3% classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.
  • Figures are worser than Bangladesh, where 24.6% of the population were multi-dimensionally poor and 18.2% classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.

Way forward: The need of the hour is reassessing and revamping affirmative actions in terms of access to health and education.