Madhya Pradesh Has Shown A Commitment To Address Poverty

The proportion of multidimensional poor in Madhya Pradesh has reduced from 36.57 per cent to 20.63 per cent in five years, according to the recently released NITI Ayog Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023.

This is a very positive development. The reduction in the proportion of the poor reflects the state government’s commitment to understanding, measuring, and addressing the many dimensions of poverty and leveraging this understanding as a key tool in policymaking. 

These achievements demonstrate the transformative power of the state government’s multisectoral approach to poverty reduction, evident in large investments in improving people’s access to sanitation, cooking fuel, and electricity. Besides the strong focus on achieving universal coverage in education, nutrition, water, and housing, it has played an important role in driving these positive outcomes

MPI uses the latest household microdata of the all-India National Family Health Survey (NFHS), sourced by the International Institute for Population Sciences in coordination with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It captures the changes in multidimensional poverty between the survey periods of NFHS-4 (2015–16) and NFHS-5 (2019–21). The MPI measures simultaneous deprivations across the three dimensions of health and nutrition, education, and standard of living.

The share of India’s population who are multidimensionally poor has declined from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent. Multidimensionally poor people have reduced to nearly half of its count as per NFHS-4 (2015-16). Total 13.5 crore people have exited multidimensional poverty in this period.

Positive trajectory 

The percentage of the total population who are multidimensionally poor in Madhya Pradesh has reduced from 36.57 per cent in 2015-16 to 20.63 per cent in 2019-21. In Madhya Pradesh, poverty has reduced by 15.94 per cent in given period of five years; it is second highest rate of improvement in the country after Bihar (18.13 per cent). A total of 1.36 crore people has exited poverty in Madhya Pradesh.

Intensity of the poverty has reduced from 47.25 per cent to 43.70 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. Highest improvement in percentage headcount has been witnessed in Alirajpur, Barwani, Khandwa (EN), Balaghat and Tikamgarh.

Sustaining livelihood

The state government has been able to reduce poverty by enabling the poor households to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots institutions of the poor.

Improvements in nutrition, increase in the years of schooling, better sanitation and cooking fuel have played a significant role in bringing down poverty. The state government has implemented steps to support the poor population which includes providing free food grain.

Madhya Pradesh has also allocated good amount of funds for subsidizing education, healthcare, electricity and other essential services.

The State Government has launched various indicator-specific schemes and implemented various Central Government-led schemes to reduce poverty and improve well-being of people.

In more than 100 Deendayal Rasoi Centers the poor are getting a nutritious meal at merely Rs 5. The state government has been distributing fortified rice to remove the deficiency of iron among women and children. Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujwala scheme 82 lakh women have been given free gas connections. The state government is running 75 senior citizen home to assist the aged and rehabilitate them. More than 6.25 lakh girls have received around 1575 crore under the various marriage schemes. 

The Government of Madhya Pradesh has been a pioneer in developing a pro-poor model of financial inclusion that is based on three pillars: a common database platform for system integration of all benefit schemes of the government; an electronic fund management system to ensure timely and accurate payments to beneficiaries; and ultra-small bank branches or customer service points for opening bank accounts, transactions and ensuring last mile connectivity.

The Madhya Pradesh government has collaborated with academia, civil society, and citizens on using multidimensional poverty measures as both a potent policy instrument as well as a mechanism to measure progress. And has taken the challenge of reducing poverty head-on with these integrated development schemes.