Mathur Ritika Passi

INDICATOR BASE YEAR (1990) LATEST STATUS (2011-12) MDF TARGET (2015)
POVERTY HEAD COUNT RATIO 47.8 21.92 23.8
POVERTY GAP RATIO
SHAREST OF POOREST
QUINTILE IN NATIONAL
CONSUMPTION
RURAL
URBAN
RURAL
URBAN
N/A 5.05
N/A 2.7
N/A 9.1
N/A 7.1
Table 1: India’s Progress on MDG1A 5
For instance, the last two decades have seen
India’s per capita income grow 60% to
98% higher than that of Bangladesh, but in
the same period, India has been overtaken
by Bangladesh in terms of life expectancy,
child survival, fertility rates, immunisation
rates and mean years of schooling—
indicators that are often clubbed together as
barometers of basic human development. 3
A glaring disconnect exists between
economic growth and human development
in India, and the multifaceted SDG 1—a
goal that India advocated at the United
Nations working group—will play a critical
role in bridging this gap. This chapter will
therefore examine the challenges that India
faces and the efforts that must be made to
achieve this goal.
Evolving from Income-Poverty to
Multidimensional Poverty
The first target under MDG 1 stipulated that
each country halve the proportion of people
living in extreme poverty between 1990
and 2015. In India, the above target was
carried out by focusing on three aspects—
prevalence, intensity and distribution. 4
Prevalence: Poverty Head Count Ratio
(PHCR)
PHCR has generally been the primary
indicator used to track the MDG on
poverty, and it measures the proportion
of individuals whose per capita income/
consumer expenditure is below the national
poverty line. India has managed to achieve
the set target well ahead of 2015. As
opposed to the target of 23.9% by 2015, the
proportion of population below the
national threshold was reduced to 21.9% by
2011-12.
Intensity: Poverty Gap Ratio (PGR)
While PHCR measures the number
of poor, PGR highlights the depth of
poverty, measuring the shortfall of mean
consumption of the poor from the national
poverty line. PGR in both rural and urban
India fell by almost 50%. This indicates
that apart from a fall in the number
of poor, the severity of poverty also
experienced an equal decline.
Distribution: Share of poorest quintile in
national consumption
The last indicator deals with the proportion
of national consumption attributed to the
poorest 20% of the population. Therefore,
it demonstrates the level of equity in the
allocation of income to, or consumption
of, the last quintile. For this indicator,
India’s performance has been modest at
best. As opposed to the ideal figure of 20%,
the share of the poorest quintile has been
decreasing for the past decade. In 2011-12,
it was 7.1% for urban areas and 9.1% for
rural areas.
Despite early achievement of the povertyrelated
MDG target, the incomplete nature
of this goal means that it is necessary to
move beyond simply raising income level to
realise the multidimensional SDG 1. India’s
national priorities are directly in line with
this approach. In fact, India’s poverty line
evolved long before the negotiation for a
comprehensive SDG on poverty.
In 2009, for the first time, India made a
conscious effort to enhance its poverty line
by estimating human capabilities (access
to basic services) in addition to economic
capabilities. Historically, poverty line
estimations in India have been anchored
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