Basic survival no longer an issue in country: Niti Aayog

Released on Friday, the report stated the country has made notable advancements in providing decent work, economic growth, climate action and life on land.

India has made significant progress in eliminating poverty, especially over the past nine years, according to Niti Aayog’s SDG India Index 2023-24, which also predicted that the country will meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of halving multidimensional poverty well before the 2030 deadline.

NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer BVR Subrahmanyam addresses a Press conference during the release of the SDG India Index 2023-24, in New Delhi on Friday. (PIB)

Released on Friday, the report stated the country has made notable advancements in providing decent work, economic growth, climate action and life on land.

“This report is saying that basic survival is no longer an issue in India. Multidimensional poverty has reduced significantly. Nearly 25 crore people have come out of poverty in the last ten years. Without any doubt, India is on track to achieve global SDG goals,” said BVR Subramaniyam, CEO of Niti Aayog, the government’s policy think-tank.

“Multidimensional poverty nearly halved from 24.8% to 14.96% between 2015-16 and 2019-21. Multidimensional poverty for 2022-23 further likely dropped to 11.28%, with 24.8 crore (248 million) people moving out of multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23.”

The findings are likely to be controversial for the methodology. Multidimensional poverty indicator, by its definition does not count the number of people who might be earning below a particular threshold, which is the conventional approach to measuring poverty.

The overall SDG score for India improved to 71 for 2023-24, a significant increase from 66 in 2020-21 and 57 in 2018, the report said.

Goal 13 (Climate Action) recorded the highest increase in score, from 54 in 2020-21 to 67 in 2023-24, followed by Goal 1 (No Poverty), which rose from 60 to 72.

However, the report highlights that Zero Hunger (Goal 2) remains far from being achieved. Large parts of central India, areas of northeast India, all of Gujarat and parts of west India are performing poorly on hunger and nutrition.

On gender equality (Goal 5), India overall remained in the “aspirant” category with a score of only 49. The sex ratio at birth stands at 929 females per 1,000 males.

The report indicates that 32 states and union territories are now in the front-runner category, with 10 new entrants. Kerala and Uttarakhand are the top-performing states, while Chandigarh is the best-performing union territory.

Other key achievements on poverty according to Subramaniyam is 140 million workers provided livelihood security under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme; 40 million urban and rural houses under PM Awas Yojana; 520 million bank accounts under Jan Dhan yojana, 60 million enrolments under Atal Pension.

Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India, cautioned about the interpretation of the data, saying, “Multidimensional poverty will reduce over time; it’s important to understand the pace at which it is going down. It’s also important to see what data is being used to arrive at these conclusions. The survey data and administrative data may show very different results.”