1.36 crore people come out of poverty due to various development initiatives by the MP Govt.
As many as 1.36 crore people have come out of the vicious cycle of poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21 in Madhya Pradesh. The intensity of poverty has come down from 47.25% to 43.70% in the state. Madhya Pradesh has contributed 10% in reducing the burden of poverty in the country.
Madhya Pradesh has registered a decline of 15.94% in the number of poor in a span of five years. The number of poor persons has decreased from 36.57% in 2015-16 to 20.63% in 2019-21. Madhya Pradesh has speedily reduced poverty among all the states. 
NITI Aayog will present its report on Multidimensional Poverty on August 8 in a program being organized at Kushabhau Thakre International Convention Center Bhopal. A policy brief will be launched on the journey of lifting 1.36 crore people from poverty. The Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan will deliver address on the occasion.
Minister for Finance Shri Jagdish Devda, Chief Secretary Shri Iqbal Singh Bains will be present. NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Shri Suman K Berry and Member Dr V K Saraswat will discuss the achievements and development journey of Madhya Pradesh. Vice Chairman of State Policy and Planning Commission, Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi, Member of Prime Minister’s Advisory Council, Prof. Shamika Ravi, Chairman of MP State Statistics Commission, Shri Praveen Srivastava, UN Resident Coordinator, Shri Shombi Sharp will make special comments. Dr. Yogesh Suri, Senior Advisor, NITI Aayog will make an opening remark on Multidimensional Poverty Indicators.
Alirajpur, Barwani, Khandwa, Balaghat, and Tikamgarh have shown impressive gains in terms of reduction in the number of poor. These facts have been revealed in the second report of NITI Aayog on Multidimensional Poverty Index-2023.
WHAT IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY?
According to globally accepted parameters, the poverty is not measured only in terms of monetary wealth. Deprivation of health, nutrition, clean water, electricity, quality of life, schooling, sanitation, child mortality, maternal mortality, housing, bank account, assets, cooking fuel etc. are also the parameters.
In Madhya Pradesh, 1.36 crore people have been elevated from the poverty line, which is indicative of tremendous improvement in health, nutrition, clean water, electricity, quality of life, school education, sanitation and other parameters. This number is more than twice the total population of countries like Singapore and Libya.
All India National Family Health Survey-4-(2015-16) reported that the number of poor in Alirajpur was 71.31 percent, which has come down to 40.25% in NHHS-5 (2019-21). Thus there has been an improvement of 31.5 percent. In Barwani, it has come down from 61.60 percent to 33.52 percent. Thus there is an improvement of 28.08%. The poverty percentage in Khandwa has come down from 42.53 to 15.15% showing an improvement of 27.38 percent. There has been an improvement of 26.48 percent in Balaghat, and 26.33 percent in Tikamgarh.
There has been a drastic reduction in poverty in the country. About 135 million people have come out of poverty in five years. The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index-2023, makes it clear that within 15 years, 415 million people have risen above poverty in the country. Obviously the quality of life has improved.
Lack of health facilities, education and quality of life are also taken care of in the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index. It has 12 parameters. It also used data from the All India National Family Health Survey. The data is released by the International Institute of Population Sciences in coordination with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 shows the change in poverty between NFHS 4 (2015-16) and NFHS 5 (2019-21).
The Sustainable Development Goals include reducing the poverty at least half by 2030. The country is moving faster towards achieving this target ahead of the target. The speedy development works in Madhya Pradesh and control over the situations that cause the poverty are creating possibilities for achieving the goal of eradicating poverty.
REDUCTION IN POVERTY IN RURAL, URBAN AREAS
There has been a decline of 20.58% in the population of poor in the rural areas of the State. It was 45.9% in NFHS 4 (2015-16) which has come down to 25.32% in NFHS-5 (2019-21). The intensity of poverty has also declined by 3.75% (47.57% to 43.82%) and the poverty index has almost halved from 0.218 to 0.111.
The urban poor population declined by 6.62%. It was 13.72% in NFHS 4 (2015-16) which has come down to 7.1% in NFHS-5 (2019-21). The intensity of urban poverty has been reduced by 2.11% (44.62% to 42.51%).
REDUCTION IN POVERTY DUE TO DEVELOPMENT IN EVERY SECTOR
The most notable improvement is access to sanitation. There has been a decrease of 19.81% in people deprived of sanitation. There has been a reduction of 16.28% in the number of people without cooking fuel, 15.12% in the number of people without housing, 13.6% in the number of people without nutrition. There has been a reduction of 9.54% in the number of people deprived of maternal health services, 8.84% reduction in drinking water shortage.
Years of absence from schooling showed a decrease of 6.06%. There has been a decrease of 5.98% in people deprived of financial services like bank accounts. There is a decline of 5.68% in the absence of assets. The State is power-surplus. Therefore, there has been a decline of 5.6% in the number of people who were deprived of electricity. There has been an increase of 2.48% in school attendance, and a decline of 1.26% in child and adult mortality.
In Alirajpur district, the proportion of poor decreased the most by 31.06 percent, from 71.31 percent to 40.25 percent. In Barwani, 28.08 percent decreased, in Khandwa 27.38 percent, in Balaghat 26.47 percent, in Tikamgarh 26.33 percent. The proportion of multidimensional poor population in Jhabua has declined from 68.66% to 49.62% at present, which represents 19.24% of the district’s population that escapes multidimensional poverty. This ratio decreased from 12.66% to 6.75% in Bhopal district, 10.76% to 5.83% in Indore and 19.5% to 14.78% in Jabalpur.
REDUCTION IN THE INTENSITY OF POVERTY
Alirajpur district has registered a decline of 9.29% in poverty intensity from 57.06% to 47.77%. Barwani district records a decline of 7.53% from 61.6% to 49.74%, Jhabua from 7.05%, Dhar from 49.34% to 7.04%, Jabalpur from 45.39% to 6.71% and Sehore from 45.39% to 38.68%. The district has seen a decrease of 6.38% to 40.12% from 46.5%.
Multidimensional Poverty Index has decreased from 0.407 to 0.192 in Alirajpur district. This decline of 0.215 shows a decrease of more than half. After this Barwani district decreased from 0.353 to 0.167, Jhabua district decreased from 0.385 to 0.243, Khandwa decreased from 0.202 to 0.067, 0.135.
