How much of India’s population is living in multidimensional poverty?

India’s multidimensional poverty rate fell from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-21, according to NITI Aayog’s National Multidimensional Poverty Index.

But the state-wise picture remains very different.

In 2019-21, Bihar had the highest multidimensional poverty rate at 33.76%, followed by Jharkhand at 28.81% and Meghalaya at 27.79%. At the other end, Kerala recorded the lowest rate at 0.55%, followed by Goa at 0.84%.

NITI Aayog’s more recent estimates suggest that India’s multidimensional poverty rate fell further to 11.28% in 2022-23. However, these 2022-23 figures are extrapolated estimates based on the 2015-16 and 2019-21 data, rather than estimates from a new NFHS survey. NITI Aayog does provide state/UT-wise projected figures for 2022-23 as well.

So, this map uses the NFHS-5 (2019-21) state-wise figures, which remain the latest comparable survey-based state-level dataset.

Source: NITI Aayog, National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023; Multidimensional Poverty in India Since 2005-06.

#upsurge

Comments

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself.......

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of a different perspective. Because if not, there's absolutely no point. Not every argument is worth your energy. Sometimes, no matter how clearly you express yourself, the other person isn’t listening to understand—they’re listening to react. They’re stuck in their own perspective, unwilling to consider another viewpoint, and engaging with them only drains you. There’s a difference between a healthy discussion and a pointless debate. A conversation with someone who is open-minded, who values growth and understanding, can be enlightening—even if you don’t agree. But trying to reason with someone who refuses to see beyond their own beliefs? That’s like talking to a wall. No matter how much logic or truth you present, they will twist, deflect, or dismiss your words, not because you’re wrong, but because they’re unwilling to see another side. Maturity is...

The battle against caste: Phule and Periyar's indomitable legacy

In the annals of India's social reform, two luminaries stand preeminent: Jotirao Phule and E.V. Ramasamy, colloquially known as Periyar. Their endeavours, ensconced in the 19th and 20th centuries, continue to sculpt the contemporary struggle against the entrenched caste system. Phule's educational renaissance Phule, born in 1827, was an intellectual vanguard who perceived education as the ultimate equaliser. He inaugurated the inaugural school for girls from lower castes in Pune, subverting the Brahminical hegemony that had long monopolized erudition. His Satyashodhak Samaj endeavoured to obliterate caste hierarchies through radical social reform. His magnum opus, "Gulamgiri" (Slavery), delineated poignant parallels between India's caste system and the subjugation of African-Americans, igniting a discourse on caste as an apparatus of servitude. Periyar's rationalist odyssey Periyar, born in 1879, assumed the mantle of social reform through the Dravidian moveme...

AI & Higher Education: The Empty Classroom

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & HIGHER EDUCATION The Empty Classroom When students outsource learning to AI and companies cut the engineers who know better, both ends of the talent pipeline fray at once. India is not watching from a safe distance. Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan At the University of California, Berkeley, something unremarkable happened in spring 2026: a professor held office hours. The unremarkable part was that nobody came. Dan Garcia, who teaches CS 10, a broad introductory computing course popularly called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing,” found his calendar conspicuously clear at the very moment his gradebook became conspicuously alarming. Of the students who sat CS 10’s final examination, 35.3% received an F—five times the historical norm of roughly 7%. Two other courses in Berkeley’s elite Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department suffered similarly: 10.6% of CS 61A students failed, and 16.8% of those in EECS 127, an upper-division optimi...

Notes of Nagesh

Search This Blog