Nearly half of India's poorest districts have seen a faster decline in multidimensional poverty

At News18's Rising Bharat summit PM Modi lauded aspirational districts programme.

Nearly half of the country’s 106 most under-developed districts have seen a faster reduction in poverty between FY16 and FY21 than their state’s average, Moneycontrol has found.

Data analysed using Niti Aayog’s Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 report shows that 46 percent of the 106 so-called aspirational districts saw a faster drop in poverty, with Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Tamil Nadu leading the pack.

Multidimensional poverty measures the deprivation of households on socio-economic indicators such as sanitation, education, and health, while also using the income criteria.

Speaking at News18’s Rising Bharat summit on April 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recounted the work done by his government for the country’s most under-developed districts. Some of the aspirational districts had done better than national and state average, he said.

“Earlier, the government had announced 100 districts as backward, many of them in the Northeast and tribal belts. We changed this approach and called them aspirational and implemented schemes in mission mode. Reputed institutions and journals have praised India's aspirational districts move,” Modi said.

The government launched the aspirational district programme in 2018 to track the progress of socio-economic development in India’s poorest districts.

Moneycontrol found that in Andhra Pradesh, all three districts listed as aspirational saw an over 50 percent change in poverty ratio compared with 48.5 percent for the state.

While the southern state’s poverty ratio declined to 6.06 percent in 2019-21 from 11.77 percent in 2015-16, the YSR Kadapa district witnessed a 64 percent drop from 9.14 percent to 3.34 percent during the period.

The average drop across aspirational districts was 54.7 percent compared with 48.5 percent average decline across the state.

In Madhya Pradesh, aspirational districts saw a decline of 46.9 percent against the state’s average dip of 40.6 percent.

Between FY16 and FY21, all aspirational districts witnessed a decline in poverty save one.

In Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur, multidimensional poverty increased to 49.7 percent from 41.2 percent five years ago.

India’s multidimensional poverty has declined from 24.85 percent to 14.96 percent during the period.

Moneycontrol analysis shows that the number of aspirational districts which have a lower poverty headcount or people who are multidimensionally poor than their state average has increased.

In 2019-21, nearly a fifth of country’s 112 aspirational districts had lower multidimensional poverty than their state average compared with 17 percent in 2015-16.