This is the second edition of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and measures simultaneous deprivations across the three equally weighted dimensions of health, education, and standard of living that are represented by 12 UN’s sustainable development goals-aligned indicators. These include nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets, and bank accounts. Marked improvement is witnessed across all the 12 indicators.

According to the Report, India has registered a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points in the number of India’s multi-dimensionally poor from 24.85 per cent in 2015-16 to 14.96 per cent in 2019-2021. The rural areas witnessed the fastest decline in poverty from 32.59 per cent to 19.28 per cent. The fastest reduction in the proportion of multidimensional poor was observed in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan. Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the MPI value has nearly halved from 0.117 to 0.066 and the intensity of poverty has reduced from 47 per cent to 44 per cent, thereby setting India on the path of achieving the SDG Target 1.2 (of reducing multidimensional poverty by at least half) much ahead of the stipulated timeline of 2030.

It demonstrates the Government’s strategic focus on ensuring sustainable and equitable development and eradicating poverty by 2030, thereby adhering to its commitment towards the SDGs. Significantly Bihar continued to have the largest number of people living in poverty followed by Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. The Lowest incidence of Poverty was recorded in Kerala followed by Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Goa and Sikkim. Among the Large states Tamil Nadu has done reasonably well. Unlike Hindi heartland, Himalayan states have done reasonably well. The Himalayan states and Union territories included Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam.

Bihar also had the highest malnourished people followed by Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Only Rajasthan is among the so-called Bimaru states that did slightly better.

Among the Himalayan states, Sikkim had the least percentage of people below poverty. Himachal Pradesh and Tripura, were the other Himalayan states where the poverty index showed that the percentage of population below poverty was less than 10 per cent. Other areas in the Himalaya region like Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Mizoram had poverty below 20 per cent. Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh had people living below poverty in the range of 20 to 30 per cent. Meghalaya and Assam were the worst among the Himalayan states with incidence of poverty in the range of 30-40 per cent.

While Bihar was above 50 per cent most of the Bimaru states were in the range of 30-40 per cent. In Below ten per cent category, only Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Haryana found mention apart from Kerala and Sikkim mentioned earlier. Most of the other Southern states, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat came in the 10 to 2O percent category.

From this one thing is very clear that higher the literacy rate, the lower the incidence of poverty. That included north-eastern states. This is because women education in particular improves the quality of life, thereby improving quality of health and poverty reduction

Meghalaya has been officially listed as the fifth-poorest state in India and the poorest in the Northeastern region. It was 32.67 per cent in Meghalaya. Assam ranks as the sixth poorest with 32.67 per cent, followed by Nagaland (10th with 25.23 per cent), Arunachal Pradesh (11th with 24.27 per cent), Manipur (14th with 17.89 per cent), Tripura (16th with 16.65 per cent) and Mizoram (22nd with 9.80 per cent). Sikkim (3.82 per cent), next only to Kerala

Meghalaya with 37.05 per cent also has the tenth-highest percentage of malnourished people among all the states. Except for Assam (39.67 per cent) other states of the Northeast fare comparatively better than Meghalaya in the nutrition aspect. On the child & adolescent mortality aspect, Meghalaya (3.10 per cent) occupies the sixth-highest position among states in the country.

Meghalaya also has the fifth-worst figure in the country with 31.70 per cent of its women deprived of maternal healthcare facilities. Among the NE states, Nagaland (33.06 per cent) has a figure worse than Meghalaya. The state is second to Bihar when it comes to percentage of population deprived of years of schooling. Meghalaya’s figure stood at 19.71 per cent against Bihar’s count of 26.27 per cent. In terms of the percentage of population deprived of school attendance the state has the ninth-highest figure in the country with 5.40 per cent.

Significantly, the report states that 69.20 per cent of the population in Meghalaya is deprived of cooking fuel while 8.10 per cent of the population does not have electricity connection as per the provisional estimates (2019-20) of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

Also, 23.60 per cent of the population in Meghalaya does not have access to drinking water (2019-20 estimates) which is the second highest in the country.

As much as 55.90 per cent of the population in the state does not have housing facilities. While 29.88 per cent of the population (second highest in country) are deprived of assets, Meghalaya also has the fourth-highest percentage (9.10 per cent) of population without a bank account. (IPA Service)