♦ According to the World Bank's latest 'Poverty & Equity Brief', India has successfully lifted 171 million people out of extreme poverty in the decade spanning from 2011-12 to 2022-23.
♦ The report reveals that extreme poverty, defined as living on less than USD 2.15 per day, fell from 16.2% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in 2022-23.
♦ The World Bank’s report finds that the reduction in extreme poverty in India has been broad-based, covering both rural and urban areas.
♦ In rural regions, extreme poverty fell from 18.4 percent in 2011-12 to 2.8 percent in 2022-23.
♦ Urban centers witnessed a decline from 10.7 percent to 1.1 percent over the same period. Moreover, the rural-urban poverty gap shrank from 7.7 percentage points to just 1.7 percentage points, reflecting an annual decline rate of 16 percent between 2011-12 and 2022-23.
♦ the lower-middle-income poverty line, measured at 3.65 US dollars per day.
♦ The poverty rate at this level fell from 61.8 percent in 2011-12 to 28.1 percent in 2022-23, lifting 378 million people out of poverty.
♦ Rural poverty at this threshold declined from 69 percent to 32.5 percent, while urban poverty dropped from 43.5 percent to 17.2 percent.
♦ The rural-urban gap narrowed significantly from 25 percentage points to 15 percentage points, with a 7 percent annual decline between 2011-12 and 2022-23.
♦ Key states have played a major role in this success.
♦ Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh, which together accounted for 65 percent of India’s extreme poor in 2011-12, contributed to two-thirds of the overall decline in extreme poverty by 2022-23.
