Beyond Income: The Alkire-Foster Multidimensional Paradigm
For decades, poverty in India was evaluated strictly through per capita monthly consumption expenditure (Tendulkar and Rangarajan poverty lines). However, income alone fails to capture whether a family has access to clean drinking water, electricity, schooling, or sanitary toilets.
The National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by NITI Aayog uses the globally acclaimed Alkire-Foster methodology based on the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5). It measures deprivations across 12 weighted indicators spanning three equal dimensions: Health (nutrition, child mortality, maternal health), Education (years of schooling, attendance), and Standard of Living (cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets, bank accounts).
A household is classified as multidimensionally poor if its deprivation score equals or exceeds 33.3% of the weighted indicators.
135 Million Escaped: The Steepest Poverty Reduction in History
NITI Aayog’s landmark report highlights that between 2015-16 and 2019-21, an astounding 135 million Indians exited multidimensional poverty, reducing the national headcount ratio from 24.85% to 14.96%.
The steepest declines occurred in the historically lagging states. Uttar Pradesh lifted 34.3 million people out of multidimensional poverty, while Bihar registered an 18-percentage-point reduction from 51.89% down to 33.76%.
At the summit, Kerala demonstrates that complete eradication of multidimensional deprivation is achievable, recording a headcount ratio of just 0.55%, followed by Goa (0.84%) and Tamil Nadu (2.20%).
The sharpest national deprivation reductions occurred in sanitation (Swachh Bharat Mission) and clean cooking gas (Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana), cutting living standard deprivations by more than half.
The Remaining Frontier: Nutrition and Child Stunting
Despite monumental strides in electricity access (Saubhagya) and bank accounts (Jan Dhan Yojana), the indicator with the highest persistent deprivation in India remains Nutrition.
Over 31% of the population still resides in households where at least one member is undernourished. Expanding nutritional diversity through the POSHAN Abhiyaan and millets distribution under the National Food Security Act is essential to eliminate the remaining pockets of multidimensional deprivation.