Less than 3 per cent of India’s population, or 3.4 crore people, live below the USD 1.90 purchasing power parity (PPP) daily criteria for global poverty, according to data from the World Poverty Count.
Further, India has seen a considerable decline in extreme poverty representing a 3 per cent decrease from 4 crore in 2023 and 4.6 crore in 2022.
The World Poverty Clock is an interactive site that acts as a real-time platform and monitors progress toward the United Nations’ SDG 1, which aims at wiping out extreme poverty globally by 2030. The data shows the enormous gap which is bumped between urban and rural areas; in fact, 94 per cent of the extremely poor are in rural communities.
Additionally, the decrease in poverty rate is the same as the findings from the latest report of the consumer expenditure survey which showed that there was a very significant dive in the poverty levels across India in the budget year 2022-23. Urban poverty saw a fall of 4.6 per cent, whereas, Rural poverty reached 7.2 per cent.
In addition, the study revealed that real consumption per capita growth has climbed by 2.9 per cent per year since 2011-12, with greater growth in rural regions than in urban areas, where it was 3.1 per cent (in rural parts) and 2.6 per cent (in urban parts). Urban households, like those in rural regions, have seen their percentage of total monthly outlay decline.
These figures are thought to be immune to major modifications, despite the likelihood of updates in the upcoming population census of 2021, which will allow authorities to fine-tune the results of this study, according to some economists.
According to projections, the proportion of the urban population living in poverty will decline, bringing India’s poverty rate down to 4.5–5 per cent.
Further, according to a Brookings Institute analysis, this fall is associated with both a strong economic expansion and a significant reduction in income disparity.
HCR stands for Headcount Poverty Ratio and it has decreased from 12.2 per cent in New York in 2011 to 20.93 per cent in 2023.
