How India remains poor: As many as 22 states have become poorer -Kiran Pandey

-Down to Earth

Latest NITI Aayog counts no state as ‘achiever’; overall performance of most ‘performing’, ‘laggard’ states towards cutting poverty dipped

With every fifth Indian still below the poverty line, the country needs to take huge strides to alleviate poverty. For most states, though, it did not seem the priority, going by the poverty score card in the SDG Index 2019-20 released by the NITI Aayog just before 2019 ended.

The index is aimed at measuring performance vis-a-vis the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals. The latest edition made it clear that India is far from the first goal — no poverty by 2030.

India’s overall score of 50 (out of 100) in this respect was, in fact, lower than 54 in the past year. The decline was across states, except two — Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim.

Arunachal Pradesh plummeted the most — 18 points — while Bihar and Odisha slipped by 12 points each. Goa and Jharkhand declined by nine points.

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