GS3 PYQ(Mains Answer Writing): Multidimensional Poverty Index Report | Indian Economy for UPSC CSE PDF Download

“The incidence and intensity of poverty are more important in determining poverty based on income alone”. In this context analyse the latest United Nations Multidimensional Poverty Index Report. (UPSC GS3 Mains)

Poverty can be defined as a condition in which an individual or household lacks the financial resources to afford a basic minimum standard of living. Economists and policymakers estimate “absolute” poverty as the shortfall in consumption expenditure from a threshold called the “poverty line”. However the official poverty line is the expenditure incurred to obtain the goods in a “poverty line basket” (PLB). Whereas Poverty can be measured in terms of the number of people living below this line (with the incidence of poverty expressed as the head count ratio). Committees for poverty estimates Six official committees have so far estimated the number of people living in poverty in India — the working group of 1962; V N Dandekar and N Rath in 1971; Y K Alagh in 1979; D T Lakdawala in 1993; Suresh Tendulkar in 2009; and C Rangarajan in 2014. 

• The government did not take a call on the report of the Rangarajan Committee; therefore, poverty is measured using the Tendulkar poverty line. 
• As per this, 21.9% of people in India live below the poverty line. Global Scenario: 
• Status - 1.3 billion People are still living in multidimensional poverty. More than 80% are deprived in at least five of the ten indicators used to measure health, education and living standards in the global MPI. 
• Status of Children - The burden of multidimensional poverty disproportionately falls on children - half of multidimensional poor people are children under age 18. 
• Positive - 65 out of 75 countries studied significantly reduced their multidimensional poverty levels between 2000 and 2019 Asia - About 84.3% of multidimensional poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. 
• Other countries - 67% of multidimensional poor people are in middle-income countries. 

Indian Scenario: 

• Current Status - India lifted as many as 270 million people out of multidimensional poverty between 2005-06 and 2015-16. 
• Neighbourhood Scenario- In China, 70 million people left multidimensional poverty between 2010 and 2014, while in Bangladesh, the numbers declined by 19 million between 2014 and 2019. 
• Impact of Covid-19 - Covid-19 is having a profound impact on the development landscape. – The study finds that on average, poverty levels will be set back 3 to 10 years due to Covid-19. 
• Sustainable Development Goals - The index emphasises on measuring and monitoring progress under the goals to reach ‘zero poverty by 2030-Goal 1 of the SDGs’. Multidimensional Poverty index: Report The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) identifies multiple deprivations at the household and individual level in health, education and standard of living. 
• It uses micro data from household surveys, and—unlike the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index—all the indicators needed to construct the measure must come from the same survey. The MPI reflects both the incidence of multidimensional deprivation (a headcount of those in multidimensional poverty) and its intensity (the average deprivation score experienced by poor people) MPI provides a practical and beneficial complement to income-based poverty measures, it doesn’t directly incorporate income. 
• The inclusion of income as an indicator could result in the counting of people’s deprivations twice. The standard of living, one of the key dimensions of the United Nations MPI, is a key representative input of economic wellbeing. 
• The MPI, which also takes account of other dimensions of wellbeing like poor health, lack of education, poor quality of work, the danger of violence, and residing in environmentally harmful locations, is considered as a corresponding measure of income poverty that underscores the progress beyond a stated limit of the monetary side of people’s lives. This way, we can say The incidence and intensity of poverty are more important in determining poverty based on income alone. 

Conclusion
The best thing about the MPI is that it not only provides a comprehensive and in-depth description of global poverty in all its dimensions but also observes progress towards SDG 1 – to end poverty in all its forms. That becomes more important when the key findings of the 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) state that India has recorded the biggest reduction in the number of multidimensionally poor people about 273 million between 2005-06 and 2015-16.