Bihar, Jharkhand and UP still poorest states in ‘shining’ India

NEW DELHI: Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India, Indian government’s top policy think tank National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog (commission) said in its latest report on Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

According to the index, 51.91 per cent of the total population of Bihar is poor, followed by 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand and 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the MPI index shows poor people in Kerala comprise 0.71 per cent of the total population in Kerala and 3.76 per cent in Goa. The states feature at the bottom of the index.

The report said India’s Multidimensional Poverty Index has three equally weighted dimensions — health, education and standard of living, which are represented by 12 indicators namely nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank accounts.

The report uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who have been key partners in ensuring the public policy utility and technical rigor of the Index. Importantly, as a measure of multidimensional poverty, it captures multiple and simultaneous deprivation faced by households.

“This report presents an in-depth analysis of the headcount ratio and intensity of multidimensional poverty at the national, state and district levels,” NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said in his foreword for the report.

This baseline report of India’s first-ever national MPI measure is based on the reference period of 2015-16 of the National Family Health Survey.