Poor in India

    55% of India’s population poor(Multi-dimensional Poverty Index- Developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) for the United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP))

    1. About 645 million people or 55% of India’s population is poor as measured by this composite indicator made up of ten markers of education, health and standard of living achievement levels.


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    2. The new data also shows that even in states generally perceived as prosperous such as Haryana, Gujarat and Karnataka, more than 40% of the population is poor by the new composite measure, while Kerala is the only state in which the poor constitute less than 20%.

    3. A person is defined as poor if he or she is deprived on at least 3 of the 10 indicators. By this definition, 55% of India was poor, close to double India’s much-criticised official poverty figure of 29%. Almost 20% of Indians are deprived on 6 of the 10 indicators.

    4. Half of all children in India are under-nourished according to the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06). Close to 40% of those who are defined as poor are also nutritionally deprived.

    5. A comparison of the state of Madhya Pradesh and the sub-Saharan nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which have close to the same population and a similar MPI (0.389 and 0.393 respectively), shows that nutritional deprivation, arguably the most fundamental part of poverty, in MP far exceeds that in the DRC.Nutritional deprivation contributes to almost 20% of MP’s MPI and only 5% of the DRC’s MPI.

    6. Multi-dimensional poverty is highest (81.4% poor) among Scheduled Tribes within India’s Hindu population, followed by Scheduled Castes (65.8%), Other Backward Class (58.3%) and finally the general population (33.3%).

    7. Based on the MPI, Bihar has by far the most poor of any state in the country, with 81.4% of its population defined as poor, which is close to 12% more than the next worst state of Uttar Pradesh.

    8. As per the Planning Commission’s figures, 41.4% of Bihar and 32.8% of UP is poor. In a possible indication of inadequate access to health and education facilities which do not show up in income poverty, almost 60% of north-east India and close to 50% of Jammu & Kashmir are poor as per the MPI, while the Planning Commission figures are around 16% and 5% respectively.

    Report: http://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Country-Brief-India.pdf

    Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/55-of-Indias-population-poor-Report/articleshow/6169549.cms


    Source: IBNLive


    Source: Hindustan Times


    ‘Every third Indian lives in poverty’(Suresh Tendulkar Report 2009)

    1. Every third Indian is living in poverty, according to the estimate of a government-appointed committee which said the number of poor has shot up by more than 10 per cent to over 37 per cent.

    2. Among the states, Orissa and Bihar are the worst while Nagaland, Delhi and J&K have the least number of poor. However, according to the World Bank’s estimates, 41.6 per cent Indians live on less than US$ 1.25 a day, the international poverty line.

    3. The World Bank in its report ‘Global Economic Prospects for 2009’ had projected that even by 2015, one-fourth of India’s population will be living in extreme poverty.

    4. n Orissa 57.2 per cent of population live under poverty. The poor in rural Orissa spend just Rs 407.78 per month and in urban areas their spending is Rs 497.31.

    5. In Bihar 54.4 per cent of the population is poor. In Madhya Pradesh over 48.6 per cent of people live below poverty line with a rural person in the state having only Rs 408 to spend on their various necessities in a month.

    source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/40703/every-third-indian-lives-poverty.html


    Poverty in India(National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) Report 2007:

    1. Nearly 836 million people, or 77 per cent of the population, lived on less than Rs.20 a day.

    2. The “extremely poor” are those with a per capita expenditure of Rs.8.9 a day while the “poor” are those who can spend up to Rs.11.6 a day. The “marginally poor” spend Rs.14.6 a day and the “vulnerable” spend Rs.20.3. In 2004-05.

    3. The extremely poor constituted 6.4 per cent of the population while the poor constituted 15.4 per cent. The marginally poor constituted 19 per cent of the population, and along with the vulnerable, this group constituted 77 per cent of the population.

    4 The poor and the vulnerable comprise nearly 79 per cent of the informal workers, 88 per cent of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, 80 per cent of the OBCs and 84 per cent of Muslims.

    5. There was a slight reduction in extreme poverty between 1993 and 2005, but the percentage of the “vulnerable” population increased from 32 to 36 per cent. On the other hand, the high-income group increased from 18 to 23 per cent of the population.

    Source: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20071005502403200.htm&date=fl2419/&prd=fline&


    1. 28.5 per cent of India’s population live below the poverty line.

    Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Poverty-line-set-to-rise-number-of-poor-to-swell/H1-Article1-464024.aspx

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