KEY TRENDS
• The all-India head count ratio (HCR) has declined by 7.3 percentage points from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 29.8% in 2009-10, with rural poverty declining by 8.0 percentage points from 41.8% to 33.8% and urban poverty declining by 4.8 percentage points from 25.7% to 20.9% @
• In rural areas, Scheduled Tribes (STs) exhibit the highest level of poverty (47.4%), followed by Scheduled Castes (SCs), (42.3%), and Other Backward Castes (OBC), (31.9%), against 33.8% for all classes @
• The top 5 states in terms of HDI during 2007-08 are: Kerala (0.790), Delhi (0.750), Himachal Pradesh (0.652), Goa (0.617) and Punjab (0.605) #
• According to HDR 2011, the HDI for India was 0.547 in 2011 with an overall global ranking of 134 (out of the 187 countries) compared to 119 (out of 169 countries) as per HDR 2010 ##
• In terms of the gender inequality index (GII), India with a value of 0.617 ranks 129 out of a total of 187 countries as per HDR 2011 ##
• According to HDR 2011, inequality in India for the period 2000-11 in terms of the income Gini coefficient was 36.8 ##
@ Press Note on Poverty Estimates, 2009-10, Planning Commission, March 2012, http://planningcommission.gov.in/news/press_pov1903.pdf
# India Human Development Report 2011: Towards Social Inclusion, which has been prepared by Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Planning Commission, GoI, http://www.im4change.org/docs/340IHDR_Summary.pdf
## Economic Survey 2011-12, http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2011-12/echap-13.pdf
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According to the Press Note on Poverty Estimates, 2009-10, Planning Commission, March 2012, http://planningcommission.gov.in/news/press_pov1903.pdf:
• The all-India head count ratio (HCR) has declined by 7.3 percentage points from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 29.8% in 2009-10, with rural poverty declining by 8.0 percentage points from 41.8% to 33.8% and urban poverty declining by 4.8 percentage points from 25.7% to 20.9%.
• Poverty ratio in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand has declined by about 10 percentage points and more.
• In Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, poverty in 2009-10 has increased.
• Some of the bigger states such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have shown only marginal decline in poverty ratio, particularly in rural areas.
Poverty ratio for Social Groups
• In rural areas, Scheduled Tribes exhibit the highest level of poverty (47.4%), followed by Scheduled Castes (SCs), (42.3%), and Other Backward Castes (OBC), (31.9%), against 33.8% for all classes.
• In urban areas, SCs have HCR of 34.1% followed by STs (30.4%) and OBC (24.3%) against 20.9% for all classes.
• In rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh, nearly two-third of SCs and STs are poor, whereas in states such as Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh the poverty ratio for these groups is more than half.
For occupational categories
• Nearly 50% of agricultural labourers and 40% of other labourers are below the poverty line in rural areas, whereas in urban areas, the poverty ratio for casual labourers is 47.1%.
• As expected, those in regular wage/ salaried employment have the lowest proportion of poor. In the agriculturally prosperous state of Haryana, 55.9% agricultural labourers are poor, whereas in Punjab it is 35.6%.
• The HCR of casual laborers in urban areas is very high in Bihar (86%), Assam (89%), Orissa (58.8%), Punjab (56.3%), Uttar Pradesh (67.6%) and West Bengal (53.7%).
* The head count ratio (HCR) is obtained using urban and rural poverty lines, which are applied on the Monthly per capita Expenditure (MPCE) distribution of the states.
According to the India Human Development Report 2011: Towards Social Inclusion, which has been prepared by Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Planning Commission, GoI, http://www.im4change.org/docs/340IHDR_Summary.pdf:
• The top 5 states in terms of HDI during 2007-08 are: Kerala (0.790), Delhi (0.750), Himachal Pradesh (0.652), Goa (0.617) and Punjab (0.605).
• The top 5 states in terms of HDI during 1999-2000 were: Delhi (0.783), Kerala (0.677), Goa (0.595), Himachal Pradesh (0.581) and Punjab (0.543).
• The bottom 5 states in terms of HDI during 2007-08 are: Chhattisgarh (0.358), Orissa (0.362), Bihar (0.367), Madhya Pradesh (0.375) and Jharkhand (0.376).
• The seven north eastern states (excluding Assam) have done remarkably well in human development outcomes to climb up three rungs from 1999-2000 and 2007-8.
• States that perform better on health and education outcomes are also the states with higher HDI and thus higher per capita income.
• Over the eight year period, HDI has risen by 21 per cent compared to a rise of 18 per cent in India’s HDI over 2000-2010 as reported by the global HDR 2010. China’s increase in HDI respectively has been 17 per cent.
• The eight poorer states – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are home to nearly 48 per cent of all SCs, 52 per cent of the STs and 44 per cent of all Muslims in the country.
• When comparing SCs and STs with Muslims in terms of human development input and outcome indicators, Muslims consistently perform better than SCs and STs. This is primarily due to their urban concentration. For most indicators, the ladder of performance on human development indicators goes like–STs, SCs and Muslims (in ascending order of absolute levels).
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According to the Human Development Report 2011-Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All, UNDP,
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Summary.pdf
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR1-main-2011HDR-English.pdf
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR2-HDI-2011HDR-English.pdf
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR5-Asia-2011HDR-English.pdf:
• During 2011 India positions 134 (HDI value 0.547) among 187 countries in terms of HDI ranking, whereas Pakistan ranks 145 (HDI value 0.504), China ranks 101 (HDI value 0.687), Sri Lanka ranks 97 (HDI value 0.691) and Bangladesh ranks 146 (HDI value 0.500). India fares worse than the average global value of 0.682.
• India's ranking in terms of Gender Inequality Index is 129 (GII value 0.617) whereas in the same area Pakistan ranks 115 (GII value 0.573), China ranks 35 (GII value 0.209), Sri Lanka ranks 74 (GII value 0.419) and Bangladesh ranks 112 (GII value 0.550).
• India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have some of the highest absolute numbers of Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) poor.
• India has by far the largest number of multidimensionally poor–612 million, more than half the country’s population, and larger than the total number of people measured according to the same criteria in all sub-Saharan countries.
• In South Asia, 97 percent of the multidimensionally poor lack access to clean drinking water, toilets, or modern cooking fuels—and 18 percent lack all three. More than 85 percent of the multidimensionally poor that in South Asia also lack access to modern sanitation facilities.
• The top four countries with high HDI are: Norway (0.943), Australia (0.929), Netherlands (0.910) and United States (0.910). The top four countries with low HDI are: Democratic Republic of Congo (0.286), Niger (0.295), Burundi (0.316) and Mozambique (0.322).
• Between 1970 and 2010 the countries in the lowest 25 percent of the HDI rankings improved their overall HDI achievement by a remarkable 82 percent, twice the global average. If the pace of improvement over the past 40 years were to be continued for the next 40, the great majority of countries would achieve HDI levels by 2050 equal to or better than those now enjoyed only by the top 25 percent in today’s HDI rankings.
• When the Human Development Index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the HDI’s top 20: the United States falls from #4 to #23, the Republic of Korea from #15 to #32, and Israel from #17 to #25.
• The Gender Inequality Index (GII) shows that Sweden leads the world in gender equality, as measured by this composite index of reproductive health, years of schooling, parliamentary representation, and participation in the labour market. Sweden is followed in the gender inequality rankings by the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Germany, Singapore, Iceland and France. Yemen ranks as the least equitable of the 146 countries in the GII, followed by Chad, Niger, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.
• The 2011 Human Development Report shows how sustainability is inextricably linked to basic questions of equity—that is, of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life.
• Sustainable human development is the expansion of the substantive freedoms of people today while making reasonable efforts to avoid seriously compromising those of future generations.
• New analysis shows how power imbalances and gender inequalities at the national level are linked to reduced access to clean water and improved sanitation, land degradation and deaths due to indoor and outdoor air pollution, amplifying the effects associated with income disparities. Gender inequalities also interact with environmental outcomes and make them worse.
• Reproductive rights can further reduce environmental pressures by slowing global demographic growth, with the world population now projected to rise from 7 billion today to 9.3 billion within 40 years.
• While three-quarters of the growth in emissions since 1970 comes from low, medium and high HDI countries, overall levels of greenhouse gases remain much greater in very high HDI countries.
• The average person in a very high HDI country accounts for more than four times the carbon dioxide emissions and about twice the methane and nitrous oxide emissions of a person in a low, medium or high HDI country—and about 30 times the carbon dioxide emissions of a person in a low HDI country
• Globally, nearly 40 percent of land is degraded due to soil erosion, reduced fertility and overgrazing. Land productivity is declining, with estimated yield loss as high as 50 percent in the most adverse scenarios.
• Agriculture accounts for 70–85 percent of water use, and an estimated 20 percent of global grain production uses water unsustainably, imperilling future agricultural growth.
• Deforestation is a major challenge. Between 1990 and 2010 Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa experienced the greatest forest losses, followed by the Arab States.
• Today, around 350 million people, many of them poor, live in or near forests on which they rely for subsistence and incomes. Both deforestation and restrictions on access to natural resources can hurt the poor.
• Around 45 million people—at least 6 million of them women—fish for a living and are threatened by overfishing and climate change.
• Some 120 national Constitutions guarantee environmental protections, but in many countries there is little enforcement of these provisions.
• Environmental deprivations in the present report include access to modern cooking fuel, clean water and basic sanitation. In developing countries at least 6 people in 10 experience one of these environmental deprivations, and 4 in 10 experience two or more. Environmental deprivations disproportionately contribute to multidimensional poverty, accounting for 20 percent of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
• South Asia has among the world’s highest levels of urban air pollution, with cities in Bangladesh and Pakistan suffering from especially acute air contamination
• Energy is central to human development, yet some 1.5 billion people worldwide—more than one in five—lack electricity. Global energy supply reached a tipping point in 2010, with renewables accounting for 25 percent of global power capacity and delivering more than 18 percent of global electricity.
• A tax of just 0.005 percent on foreign exchange trading could raise $40 billion yearly or more, thus, significantly boosting aid flows to poor countries—amounting to $130 billion in 2010.
• India’s Rural Employment Guarantee Act cost about 0.5 percent of GDP in 2009 and benefited 45 million households—one-tenth of the labour force; Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and Mexico’s Oportunidades programmes cost about 0.4 percent of GDP and provide safety nets for about one-fifth of their populations.
• Nearly 3 in 10 children of primary school age in low HDI countries are not even enrolled in primary school, and multiple constraints, some environmental, persist even for enrolled children.
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According to the 2010 Human Development Report, which has been produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/summary/#top:
• The 2010 Human Development Index (HDI), which is a composite national measure of health, education and income for 169 countries, shows that Norway, Australia and New Zealand are leading the world in HDI achievement with Niger, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe at the bottom of the annual rankings.
• The next seven among the top 10 countries in the 2010 HDI are: the United States, Ireland, Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Germany. The other seven among the bottom 10 countries are: Mali, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Burundi.
• For the 20th anniversary of the Report, The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development, the 2010 HDI uses data and methodologies that were not available in most countries in 1990 for the dimensions of income, education and health. Gross National Income per capita replaces Gross Domestic Product per capita, to include income from remittances and international development assistance, for example. The upper ‘cap’ on income for index weighting purposes was removed to give countries that had surpassed the previous US$40,000 limit an HDI, better reflecting real incomes levels.
• In education, expected years schooling for school-age children replaces gross enrolment, and average years of schooling in the adult population replaces adult literacy rates, to provide a fuller picture of education levels. Life expectancy remains the main indicator for health.
• 2010's HDI should not be compared to the HDI that appeared in previous editions of the Human Development Report due to the use of different indicators and calculations.
• In addition to the 2010 HDI, the Report includes three new indices: the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the Gender Inequality Index and the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
• Significant progress in human development was also found for most of the nine South Asian countries in the trends analysis—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal and Pakistan. Over the past 40 years life expectancy increased by 23 years in Bangladesh, 18 years in Iran, 16 years in India, and 10 years in Afghanistan.
• Eight Indian states, with poverty as acute as the 26 poorest African countries measured, are home to 421 million multidimensionally poor people, more than the 410 million multidimensional poor people living in those African countries combined.
• About 1.75 billion people in the 104 countries covered by the MPI—a third of their population— live in multidimensional poverty— that is, with at least 30 percent of the indicators reflecting acute deprivation in health, education and standard of living. This exceeds the estimated 1.44 billion people in those countries who live on $1.25 a day or less (though it is below the share who live on $2 or less). The patterns of deprivation also differ from those of income poverty in important ways: in many countries—including Ethiopia and Guatemala—the number of people who are multidimensionally poor is higher. However, in about a fourth of the countries for which both estimates are available—including China, Tanzania and Uzbekistan— rates of income poverty are higher.
• Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of multidimensional poverty. The level ranges from a low of 3 percent in South Africa to a massive 93 percent in Niger; the average share of deprivations ranges from about 45 percent (in Gabon, Lesotho and Swaziland) to 69 percent (in Niger). Yet half the world’s multidimensionally poor live in South Asia (51 percent, or 844 million people), and more than a quarter live in Africa (28 percent, or 458 million).
• Gender inequality varies tremendously across countries—the losses in achievement due to gender inequality (not directly comparable to total inequality losses because different variables are used) range from 17 percent to 85 percent. The Netherlands tops the list of the most gender-equal countries, followed by Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.
• Countries with unequal distribution of human development also experience high inequality between women and men, and countries with high gender inequality also experience unequal distribution of human development. Among the countries doing very badly on both fronts are Central African Republic, Haiti and Mozambique.
According to the Human Development Report 2007-08, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):
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The HDI (human development index) for India is 0.619, which gives the country a rank of 128th out of 177 countries. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income).
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The HPI-1 (human poverty index) value for India is 31.3, which gives the country a rank of 62nd out of 108 countries. The Human Poverty Index for developing countries (HPI-1), focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in the same dimensions of human development as the human development index - living a long and healthy life, having access to education, and a decent standard of living.
According to the National Human Development Report (2001), which has been prepared by the Planning Commission (GoI):
Kerala (0.638) topped the ranking in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), to be followed by Punjab (0.537), Tamil Nadu (0.531), Maharastra (0.523) and Haryana (0.509), during 2001. The worst performer in terms of HDI was Bihar (0.367) to be followed by Assam (0.386), Uttar Pradesh (0.388) and Madhya Pradesh (0.394).
According to the 11th Five-Year Plan of the Planning Commission
http://www.planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v3/11v3_ch4.pdf:
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India has successfully reduced the share of the poor in the population by 27.4 percentage points from 54.9 in 1973 to 27.5 in 2004. Between 1973 and 1983, the HCR of the poor had declined from 54.9% to 44.5%, and it fell further to 36% in 1993–94 and to 27.5% by 2004–05
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Some States have been particularly successful in reducing the share of the poor in the total population. In 2004–05, the States with the lowest HCR were J&K (5.4%), Punjab (8.4%), Himachal Pradesh (10%), Haryana (14%), Kerala (15%), Andhra Pradesh (15.8%), and Gujarat (16.8%); at the other end of the spectrum are Orissa (46.4%), Bihar (41.4%), Madhya Pradesh (38.3%), and Uttar Pradesh (32.8%)—which also happen to be among the most populous States of India.
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The States that were formed recently (Chhattisgarh 40.9%, Jharkhand 40.3%, Uttarakhand 39.6%) have among them the highest poverty ratio
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Four States account for nearly 58% of India’s poor population in 2004–05: Uttar Pradesh (19.6%), Bihar (12.23%), Madhya Pradesh (8.3%) and Maharashtra (10.5%). In 1983, these States (including undivided Bihar and Madhya Pradesh) accounted for 49% of India’s total poor population
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The number of the poor barely changed over the last three decades, remaining constant over two decades before falling (3213 lakhs in 1973, 3229 lakhs in 1983, 3204 lakhs in 1993–94) to 3017 lakhs in 2004–05
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In some States, the absolute numbers of the poor in the population has actually increased over the last three decades: in Uttar Pradesh (including Uttaranchal) from 535.7 lakhs in 1973 to 626 lakhs in 2004–05; in Rajasthan from 128.5 lakhs to 134.9 lakhs; in Maharashtra from 287.4 lakhs to 317.4 lakhs, and in Nagaland from 2.9 lakhs to 4.0 lakhs. The total number of poor has also increased in Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh) taken together from 276 lakhs to 341 lakhs and in Bihar (including Jharkhand) from 370 lakhs to 485.5 lakhs over the same period.
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There are many States where the number of poor overall has remained roughly constant over the last two decades: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, and Mizoram.
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There are states that have succeeded in reducing the absolute number of the poor in rural areas over the three decades from 1973 to 2004–05: Andhra Pradesh from 178.2 lakhs to 64.7 lakhs; Karnataka from 128.4 lakhs to 75 lakhs; Kerala from 111.4 lakhs to 32.4 lakhs; Tamil Nadu from 172.6 lakhs to 76.5 lakhs; and West Bengal from 257.9 lakhs to 173.2 lakhs
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The number of poor in rural areas in the country as a whole has declined from 2613 lakhs in 1973 to 2209 lakhs in 2004–05
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In urban areas the numbers of the poor has gone on increasing from 600.5 lakhs in 1973 to 808.0 lakhs in 2004–05
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Agricultural labour households accounted for 41% of rural poor in 1993–94 as well as in 2004–05.
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Among social groups, SCs, STs, and backward castes accounted for 80% of the rural poor in 2004–05
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The mean body mass index (BMI) for SCs, STs, and OBCs is 5–10% below that for Others, and very close to the cut-off for malnutrition (>18.5). (BMI is a measure of a person’s nutritional status [weight for height, measured in kg per square metre, sq m, of height.])
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The percentage of female persons living in poor households was 28% in rural and 26% in urban areas in 1993–94, and 29 and 23 respectively in 2004–05. In contrast, the percentage of male persons living in poverty was 27 in rural and 26 in urban areas in 1993–94, and 27 and 23 in 2004–05. The lower percentage of female persons among the poor despite higher female poverty ratio was due to an adverse sex ratio—which itself is a reflection of the discrimination that women and girls face over their life-cycle.
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The percentage of children below 15 years living in below poverty line (BPL) households constituted 39 in rural and 41 in urban areas in 1993–94 and 44 in rural and 32 in urban areas in 2004–05. Among the poor population, the percentage of children increased from 44 in rural and 39 in urban areas in 1993–94, to 46 and 42 respectively in 1999–2000.