NITI Aayog releases National Multidimensional Poverty Index:Kerala has emerged as the best state

• NITI Aayog releases National Multidimensional Poverty Index.

• Bihar ranks on top in the list of most number of poor people living in a state.

• Kerala has emerged as the best state with only 0.71% poor people.

In its first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report released on Friday, the Niti Aayog said Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh were found to be the poorest states in the country. They were followed by Madhya Pradesh and Meghalaya in the index.

As per the index, 51.91 per cent population of Bihar is poor, followed by 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand, 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. While Madhya Pradesh (36.65 per cent) has been placed fourth in the index, Meghalaya (32.67 per cent) is at the fifth spot.

Kerala (0.71 per cent), Goa (3.76 per cent), Sikkim (3.82 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.89 per cent) and Punjab (5.59 per cent) have registered the lowest poverty across India and are at the bottom of the index.

According to the report, India’s national MPI measure uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Importantly, as a measure of multidimensional poverty, it captures multiple and simultaneous deprivation faced by households, it added.The report said, India’s MPI 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 Sustainable Development Goals framework, with 17 global goals and 169 targets, is significantly wider in scope and scale relative to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), its predecessor.

NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar in his foreword said, “The development of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index of India is an important contribution towards instituting a public policy tool which monitors multidimensional poverty, informs evidence-based and focused interventions, thereby ensuring that no one is left behind.”

Mr Kumar further said this baseline report of India’s first ever national Multidimensional Poverty Index measure is based on the reference period of 2015-16 of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

The national Multidimensional Poverty Index measure has been constructed by utilising 12 key components which cover areas such as health and nutrition, education and standard of living, he said.