Almost
129 million Indians are living in extreme poverty in 2024, on less than $2.15
(about Rs 181) a day, down from 431 million in 1990, the World Bank said in
report on Tuesday 15 Oct However, with a higher poverty standard of $6.85
(about Rs 576) per day — the poverty threshold for middle-income countries —
more Indians are living below the poverty line in 2024 than in 1990, primarily
driven by ‘population growth’.
Earlier,
the World Bank had said that extreme poverty in India had declined by 38
million in 2021 to 167.49 million after growing in the preceding two years.
The
‘Poverty, Prosperity and Planet: Pathways out of the Polycrisis’ report,
however, clarified that these new
datasets had not factored in the Household Consumption and Expenditure Survey
(HCES) for 2022-23 released recently. “These new datasets are not reflected
in the report, since the necessary analysis could not be completed in time.
"While
the precise impact of adding these two datasets on global poverty is unclear at
the time of this writing, key conclusions of the report are robust, such as the
increasing concentration of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile
countries, and that extreme poverty eradication by 2030 is out of reach,” it
added.
The
report noted that global poverty reduction had slowed to a near standstill,
with 2020–2030 set to be a lost decade.
At
the current pace of progress, the report noted that it would take decades to
eradicate extreme poverty and more than a century to lift people above $6.85
per day mark.
The
World Bank said India’s contribution to global extreme poverty was projected to
decline significantly over the next decade.
“These
estimates are based on projections of growth in GDP per capita over the next
decade, as well as historical growth rates.
"Even
setting the extreme poverty rate in India in 2030 to zero, the global extreme
poverty rate in 2030 would only fall from 7.31 per cent to 6.72 per cent, still
well above the 3 per cent target,” it added.
The
report said the impact of the recent methodological changes in the latest HCES
also needed to be examined carefully.
Since 1999-2000, India has been
experimenting with various recall periods (the amount of time respondents are
asked to remember past consumption events, say from a month or six months ago)
to improve the accuracy of consumption data collection.
In
the 2011-12 survey, India utilised three recall periods: the Uniform Recall
Period (URP), Mixed Reference Period (MRP), and Modified Mixed Reference Period
(MMRP).
In
2011-12, MRP was adopted for official poverty rate calculations, and it was
indicated that future data collection would transition to using MMRP.
For
the 2022-23 survey, India exclusively used the MMRP recall period for
collecting consumption data.