NITI Aayog’s Multidimensional Poverty

Q. Why is this in news?
A. The Government think-tank NITI Aayog has released the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).

Q. What is Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)?

A. 

• This baseline report of India’s first-ever national MPI measure is based on the reference period of 2015-16 of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)- 4.
• It uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• It captures multiple and simultaneous deprivations faced by households.

Q. Which are the Parameters used?
A. 

• The NMPI is calculated using 12 indicators — nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank account,
• They have been grouped under three dimensions namely, health, education and standard of living.

Q. Why NFHS-4?

A.

• Data collected during the NFHS-4 (2015-2016) corresponds to the period before the full roll out of new governments’ flagship schemes.
• Hence it serves as a useful source for measuring the situation at baseline i.e. before large-scale rollout of nationally important schemes.

Q. How is the data used?

A.

• The national MPI 2021 is calculated using the household microdata collected at the unit-level for the NFHS-4 that is used to derive the baseline multidimensional poverty.
• Further, the country’s progress would be measured using this baseline in the NFHS-5, for which the data was collected between 2019 and 2020.
• The progress of the country with respect to this baseline will be measured using the NFHS-5 data collected in 2019-20.

Q. What are the Key highlights of NMPI?

A. 

• As per the index, 51.91% of the population in Bihar is poor, followed by Jharkhand (42.16%), Uttar Pradesh (37.79%), Madhya Pradesh (36.65%) and Meghalaya (32.67%).
• On the other hand, Kerala registered lowest population poverty levels (0.71%), followed by Puducherry (1.72%), Lakshadweep (1.82%), Goa (3.76%) and Sikkim (3.82%).
• Other States and UTs where less than 10% of the population are poor include Tamil Nadu (4.89%), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (4.30%), Delhi (4.79%), Punjab (5.59%), Himachal Pradesh (7.62%) and Mizoram (9.8%).