171 million people in India lifted above poverty line in the past decade: World Bank
India has significantly reduced poverty over the past decade, with extreme poverty declining from 16.2 percent in 2011-12 to 2.3 percent in 2022-23, bringing 171 million people above the poverty line, a World Bank report has said.
Rural extreme poverty dropped from 18.4 percent to 2.8 percent, while urban extreme poverty dropped from 10.7 percent to 1.1 percent.
This narrowed the rural-urban gap from 7.7 to 1.7 percentage points, which is a 16 percent annual decline, according to the multilateral agency's Poverty and Equity Brief.
"India also transitioned into the lower-middle-income category. Using the $3.65 per day LMIC (lower middle income country) poverty line, poverty fell from 61.8% to 28.1%, lifting 378 million people out of poverty," the report said.
The report said rural poverty dropped from 69 percent to 32.5 percent, and urban poverty from 43.5 percent to 17.2 percent, reducing the rural-urban gap from 25 to 15 percentage points with a 7% annual decline.
The five most populous states of India -Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh - comprise 65 percent of the country's extreme poor in 2011-12. They contributed to two-thirds of the overall decline in extreme poverty by 2022-23, according to the report.
"Nevertheless, these states still accounted for 54 percent of India's extremely poor (2022-23) and 51% of the multidimensionally poor (2019-21). As measured by the multidimensional poverty index (MPI), non-monetary poverty declined from 53.8% in 2005-06 to 16.4% by 2019-21," it said.
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