India's Extreme Poverty Rate Falls To 5.3%: World Bank Report

According to a recent World Bank report, the extreme poverty rate of India has declined sharply to 5.3% in 2021-22 from 27% in 2011-12. The report highlights the significant progress over the past decade, even as the poverty threshold rose to $3 per day in 2024. The number of Indians living in extreme poverty dropped dramatically from 344 million in 2011-12 to 75.24 million in 2021-22.

States such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, which faced poverty crisis in the 2011-12 estimation, have accounted for nearly two-third of the overall reduction in extreme poverty. The World Bank attributes much of this improvement to targeted free-subsidy measures implemented across these states.

Under the older global poverty line of $2.15 per day, the number of people below the poverty threshold fell from 205.93 million in 2011 to 33.66 million in 2022. This reduction was seen across both rural and urban areas, falling from 18.4% to 2.8% and from 10.7% to 1.1% respectively. “India has lifted 171 million people from extreme poverty in the decade between 2011-12 and 2022-23,” the World Bank stated.

Moreover, India has shown substantial progress in reducing multidimensional poverty, which measures poverty by considering multiple indicators, including health, education and living standards. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) dropped from 53.8 per cent in 2005-06 to 16.4 per cent by 2019-21 and further declined to 15.5 per cent in 2022-23, according to the data.