— Ritwika Patgiri

(The Indian Express has launched a new series of articles for UPSC aspirants written by seasoned writers and scholars on issues and concepts spanning History, Polity, International Relations, Art, Culture and Heritage, Environment, Geography, Science and Technology, and so on. Read and reflect with subject experts and boost your chance of cracking the much-coveted UPSC CSE. In the following article, Ritwika Patgiri examines the multidimensional nature of poverty in rural India.)

With over 80 per cent of the world’s poor living in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, India is among the countries with the largest number of the world’s poor, found the 2024 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report. 

The report also stated that almost 84 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas and they are poorer than their counterparts in the urban areas. In the case of India, rural poverty has been a persistent issue for policymakers. 

Let’s examine the issue of rural poverty in India and find answers to questions like what is rural poverty, how is it measured, and what accounts for its persistence. 

The MPI, developed by Sabina Alkire and James Foster and adopted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2010, measures deprivation across health, education, and standard of living, and not monetary poverty. 

National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), the apex public policy think-tank of the Indian government, in collaboration with the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), developed a National Multidimensional Poverty Index to monitor multidimensional poverty at national, state, and district levels in the country. 

In January this year, NITI Aayog released a discussion paper titled Multidimensional Poverty in India since 2005-06 which claims that the country has seen a significant decline in multidimensional poverty from 29.17 per cent in 2013-14 to 11.28 per cent in 2022-23; and 24.82 crore people have “escaped” multidimensional poverty. 

The discussion paper sends a positive message that India is on its way to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1.2 of “halving multidimensional poverty by 2030”. The paper also notes rural India has seen a larger decline in multidimensional poverty. Between 2015-16 and 2019-21, poverty in rural India decreased from 32.59 per cent to 19.28 per cent, while urban poverty fell from 8.65 per cent to 5.27 per cent. 

However, NITI Aayog’s poverty projections have been questioned on the grounds of a) the choice of indicators, b) methodological approach, which is also referred to as “an index of service delivery”, c) reliance on household survey data, and d) lack of recent poverty data as poverty statistics haven’t been updated since July 2013.

Therefore, the emphasis has been on the need for frequent poverty data to support more effective rural policy development and poverty alleviation programmes.

Rural poverty, which refers to poverty in rural areas, is characterised by various factors including poor living conditions, heavy reliance on agriculture, landlessness and limited access to basic services. In addition, the rural poor are often affected by social constraints stemming from caste, gender, and ethnicity, which can limit social mobility and access to opportunities.

For instance, the 2018 National Sample Survey (NSS) on education highlighted significant disparities, with rural literacy at 73.5 per cent compared to 87.7 per cent in urban areas. Also, the 76th round of the NSS underlined notable differences in access to basic services. About 29 per cent of rural households lack access to toilets, in contrast to nearly 4 per cent in urban areas; and more than 40 per cent of rural households do not have drinking water facilities within the home, compared to 20 per cent in urban areas. 

These statistics underline that understanding deprivation and multidimensional poverty in India requires a perspective that goes beyond the data. Also, around 65 per cent of India’s population lives in rural areas, but a disproportionately high percentage – about 90 per cent – of the nation’s poor reside in rural areas. 

The Periodic Labour Force Survey data shows that around 59 per cent of the rural workers are engaged in agriculture and allied activities. Among agricultural workers, there is a disparity in the incidence of poverty based on whether a worker is a cultivator or a casual wage worker. 

The incidence of poverty is much higher among agricultural labourers than cultivators. For instance, as of 2004-05, 21.5 per cent of the cultivators are poor while 46.4 per cent of all agricultural casual workers are poor. Among the rural non-agricultural workers, the type of non-agricultural work is important. Self-employment in non-farm work or precarious and casual non-farm work like in construction may not lead to poverty reduction. 

Another way of understanding rural poverty is by looking at access to land and land ownership. Data reveals that the small (1-2 hectares of land) and marginal (less than 1 hectare) farming households are the most affected and poor groups. 

India is also the only country in South Asia where poverty is significantly higher among female-headed households as compared to male-headed households. Around 19.7 per cent of female-headed households are poor in India while 15.9 per cent of male-headed households are poor. 

Hence, along with regional factors, gender, caste, and religion are also important determinants in understanding poverty in India. For instance, studies have found that both Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes in India contribute more to multidimensional poverty than their population share.

While rural poverty has been a persistent issue for Indian policymakers, the country has also seen significant rural-urban migration. As of 2020-21, about one-third of India’s total population is migrants. Migrants form 34.6% of the total population in urban areas. This has led to growing debates on “urbanisation of poverty”. 

As migration to urban centres grows, concerns around housing, water, sanitation, health, education, livelihood, and social security become important. Therefore, policies that prioritise health, nutrition, maternal health, and accessible medical facilities are crucial for poverty reduction across rural and urban areas. 

Given the complex nature of poverty in India, which varies by state, region, caste, gender, and religion, it is clear that poverty cannot be fully understood or addressed without considering these spatial and social dimensions.

What are some key characteristics of rural poverty in India, and how does it differ from urban poverty?

What are the main critiques of NITI Aayog’s poverty projections, particularly concerning the choice of indicators?

What are the potential impacts of outdated poverty data on understanding and addressing multidimensional poverty in India?

How do social constraints related to caste, gender, and ethnicity impact poverty in rural areas and limit social mobility?

(Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Economics in South Asian University.)

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