Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights says: “For decades we have been following the same recipe: “grow the economy first, then use the wealth to combat poverty”. This has resulted in a world with a tiny elite possessing most of the wealth while hundreds of millions of people wake up every day to the horrors of extreme poverty.

Growth should not be the sole objective of economic policy. It is necessary to ensure that the benefits of growth accrue to all sections of society. In India, eradication of poverty is to be an important policy objective to minimise the present intense income inequality.

Formulation and implementation of a meaningful and constant poverty alleviation programme and constant evaluation of the progress of the economy in eradicating poverty are essential for providing a certain minimum standard of living for all its citizens. For this purpose, a realistic measure of poverty must be developed and updated for continuous assessment of the number of poor people in the country.

Definition of poverty

Poverty in India is complex and defined differently based on lack of one or more of the following basic needs of the people, such as: (1) Lack of income, (2) Social issues, (3) Limited access to services: Education, healthcare, and other basic services, (4) Lack of participation in decision-making and (5) Psychological and moral aspects:

Therefore, Indians living below the poverty line as well as above the poverty line can be numbered among the people in poverty depending upon the varied definitions of poverty.

Real poverty

Real poverty at the bottom of the definitions should be the lack of income for food, clothing, shelter and medicine. Foremost, the poverty alleviation policy is of the Government is must address eradicating this basic poverty.

Researchers point out that perhaps the best approach is to define poverty in terms of certain minimum consumption expenditure per person or per household.

Official Poverty Estimates (2017-18) withheld by Union Government

The official estimate of poverty is based on the consumption expenditure survey (CES), conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) since 1950s.

The report of the last the Consumption Survey 2017-18 was withheld by the Union Government, because the Survey revealed rise in poverty after 2012.

In 2019, data collected by an autonomous Government agency was also discarded by the(ion Government.

It is a sad commentary that in effect the Union Government does not have any official estimate on poverty till now (2024) apart from the estimate made from NSSO Consumption Expenditure Survey made in 2011-12.

Sharp Rise in Poverty during 2012 to 2017

Though the report of the Consumption Expenditure Survey 2017-18 of NSSO was officially withheld by the Government, details of the Survey were leaked, and estimate of poverty has since been made by researchers, using the leaked report.

The report published (using the leaked report) by The India Forum [Subramanian (2019)] shows that real monthly per-capita consumption expenditure (MPCE), according to the NSSO’s CES, declined to Rs 1,304 in 2017-18 from Rs 1,430 in 2011-12 resulting in an alarming rise in the poverty head count ratio to 35% from 31%, showing 47 crore people in poverty out of the total population of 135.4 crore in 2017. The Subramanian estimate imply an increase in the number of poor by 52 million persons from 2011-12 up to 2017-18

India It is reported that there has not seen such a sharp rise in the number of poor in in India in the last four decades.

New poverty index of NITI Aayog undermines real poverty level

To conceal the rise in poverty, Niti Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India), a Union Government agency, has adopted a new definition of poverty, using a National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) constructed with indicators such as availability of health, education and standard of living.

Using this unrealistic MPI, the Niti Ayog has reported steep decline in poverty from 29% to 11%, Economists have raised serious doubts over the use of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to the claim reduction in poverty.

Hunger has risen in India to “serious” level

According to the report of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (of WHO), India ranked 102 (out of 117 countries) in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) score at 30.3 in 2019, slipped to 105 (out of 127 countries) with the score at 27.3

Hunger in India is categorised as “serious”

(GHI is a 100-point scale that measures the severity of hunger in a country. The GHI is calculated using four indicators, each equally weighted, to reflect the availability of food, nutritional status of children, and child The GHI severity scale is: ≥50: Extremely alarming; 35-49.9: Alarming; 20-4.9: Serious; 10-19.9: Moderate; ≤9.9: Low).

Poverty alleviation programmes

An important ingredient of poverty alleviation programmes is the MGREGA scheme of the Union Government (100 days work to rural poor).

Other social welfare programmes of the Government are not to be seen as poverty alleviation programmes, as such programmes do not address removal acute poverty (people below the poverty line).

The Government was criticised for reducing the allocation for the scheme In the budget for 2023-24, despite previous expenditures exceeding the allocation.

Focussed action by the Government with programmes exclusively meant for meeting the minimum consumption needs of the crores of people in acute poverty on a war footing is the urgent need on the road to speedily reduce poverty in India.

S.J.S. Swamidoss is Director (Retd.) Department of Economic and Policy Research, Reserve Bank of India, and Expert in the Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare (EGROW) .