India is home to 129 million 'extremely poor' people: World Bank 2024 report

India has 129 million citizens living in extreme poverty in 2024, the World Bank said in its recently published report. These people live on less than Rs 180 a day. The number of extremely poor people in India has, however, fallen from 431 million in 1990, it added.

Highlighting that the country is crucial for global poverty measurement because of its population size, the World Bank stated that more Indians have been living below the poverty line in 2024 than in 1990 primarily due to population growth and the high poverty threshold of $6.85 (about Rs 576) per day for middle-income countries. It cited the lack of education among the youth in India as a major factor for the extreme poverty. "The extreme poverty rate in South Asia is driven by India, where less than 1 percent of the population age 15 or above have no formal education," the World Bank stated in the Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024.

"This is a big change in the poverty rate estimated for India, but it is not unprecedented. Many countries around the world have improved their measurement of consumption, leading to higher measured levels of consumption, similar to India’s case."

The report added that extreme poverty in India was projected to fall below 3 percent by the end of this decade, so India’s contribution to global extreme poverty is projected to decline significantly over the next decade. These estimates are based on projections of growth in GDP per capita over the next decade and historic growth rates.