On This Page
- Conceptual Clarity
- Poverty — Concept & Approaches
- Types of Poverty
- Causes of Poverty in India
- Poverty Estimation — Pre-Tendulkar
- Tendulkar Committee (2009)
- Rangarajan Committee (2014)
- Multidimensional Poverty Index
- Hunger & Malnutrition
- Global Hunger Index
- Inequality-Poverty-Hunger Nexus
- Government Initiatives
- Current Affairs Anchor
- Prelims PYQs
- Mains PYQs
- Revision Box
⚡ Conceptual Clarity — Get This Right First
1.Poverty — Concept & Approaches
Poverty is a state in which an individual or household lacks the financial resources and/or capabilities to afford a minimum acceptable standard of living. It has been conceptualised through three broad lenses that have shaped Indian policy over time.
| Approach | Core Idea | Application in India |
|---|---|---|
| Welfarist / Income Approach | Poverty = income/consumption below a subsistence threshold | Basis of Alagh, Lakdawala, Tendulkar, Rangarajan poverty lines |
| Basic Needs Approach | Poverty = lack of access to essential goods & services (food, water, shelter, health, education) | Underlies NFSA, Jal Jeevan Mission, Ayushman Bharat framing |
| Capability Approach (Amartya Sen) | Poverty = deprivation of basic capabilities — the freedom to achieve valuable "functionings" (being well-nourished, educated, able to participate in society) | Conceptual foundation of HDI & India's MPI |
Poverty Line — Definition
A poverty line is a threshold level of per-capita monthly expenditure (PCME) below which a person is classified as poor. India's official lines were historically anchored to a minimum calorie-intake norm — 2400 kcal/day rural, 2100 kcal/day urban — converted into a monetary expenditure equivalent using price data from the National Sample Survey (NSS).
2.Types of Poverty
Absolute Poverty
Inability to meet a fixed minimum subsistence threshold (food, shelter, clothing) — India's official approach via poverty lines since Independence.
Relative Poverty
Deprivation relative to the general standard of living in a society, typically defined as below a percentage of median income — standard in OECD countries, not officially used in India.
Chronic Poverty
Persistent, multi-generational poverty transmitted through lack of assets, education & social exclusion (often correlated with caste/tribal identity).
Transient Poverty
Temporary poverty caused by shocks — crop failure, illness, job loss, disaster — from which households may recover; distinguishing chronic from transient poor is key for scheme design (insurance vs asset creation).
Urban Poverty
Linked to informal employment, slum/pavement housing, lack of civic amenities & vulnerability to eviction/displacement without title security.
Rural Poverty
Linked to landlessness, agricultural wage dependence, seasonal/disguised unemployment & poor access to institutional credit/markets.
3.Causes of Poverty in India
- Historical: Colonial deindustrialisation of traditional handicrafts, exploitative land-revenue systems (Permanent Settlement) & systematically low colonial investment in human capital.
- Demographic: High population growth historically outpacing job/asset creation; large dependency ratio & early marriage/fertility in poor households compounding per-capita resource scarcity.
- Economic: Low agricultural productivity, dominance of informal/casual employment, "jobless growth" in the post-1991 period, landlessness & stagnant real wages in unskilled segments.
- Social: Caste-based exclusion & occupational segregation, gender discrimination in asset ownership & labour-market access, low educational attainment & restricted social mobility.
- Structural/Regional: Sharp inter-state & intra-state disparity in development (e.g., EAG/BIMARU states vs southern/western states), weak rural infrastructure & poor market/credit access in backward regions.
- Governance-related: Leakages & exclusion errors in welfare delivery, corruption in targeting, partly addressed via DBT/JAM but not fully eliminated (cross-link Topic 02).
- Environmental: Climate-induced agrarian distress, recurrent drought/flood cycles & degradation of common property resources on which the rural poor disproportionately depend.
4.Poverty Estimation — Pre-Tendulkar Methods
| Committee/Method | Year | Key Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Working Group (V.M. Dandekar & N. Rath) | 1971 | First systematic calorie-norm-based poverty line estimation in independent India, using NSS data. |
| Task Force (Y.K. Alagh) | 1979 | Formally adopted 2400 kcal (rural) / 2100 kcal (urban) calorie norms, converted to expenditure; official basis till 2009. |
| Lakdawala Committee | 1993 | Retained calorie anchor but introduced state-specific poverty lines using state-level Consumer Price Indices (CPI-AL for rural, CPI-IW for urban), delinking a single national line. |
5.Tendulkar Committee (2009)
Headed by Suresh Tendulkar, constituted by the Planning Commission to review poverty estimation methodology following widespread criticism that calorie-based lines understated deprivation.
- Moved away from calorie-based norms to a poverty line based on Mixed Reference Period (MRP) consumption expenditure covering food, education, health & conveyance.
- Adopted a uniform poverty line basket (PLB) derived from urban consumption patterns, applied to both rural & urban India with price adjustments (rather than separate calorie targets).
- Recommended incorporating private out-of-pocket expenditure on health & education into the poverty line for the first time — recognising these as essential, not discretionary, spending.
- Its 2011-12 estimates were used as the last officially released poverty figures, showing poverty ratio declining from 37.2% (2004-05) to 21.9% (2011-12).
6.Rangarajan Committee (2014)
Headed by C. Rangarajan, constituted in 2012 specifically to review the Tendulkar methodology in light of the low-threshold criticism; submitted its report in 2014.
- Recommended separate consumption baskets for rural & urban India, built around a normative nutritional requirement (calories, proteins, fats) plus explicit non-food essentials — clothing, rent, conveyance, education, medical care.
- Raised the poverty line to approx. ₹32/day rural & ₹47/day urban (2011-12 prices) — substantially higher than Tendulkar's, correspondingly raising the estimated national poverty ratio to around 29.5% (2011-12) versus Tendulkar's 21.9%.
- Its report was submitted but never formally adopted by the government as the official poverty line — India currently has no officially notified poverty line post-Rangarajan.
7.Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
Developed globally by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP (first published 2010, part of the Human Development Report family); adapted for India by NITI Aayog since 2021 using National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data.
Three Dimensions, 12 Indicators
| Dimension | Weight | Indicators |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 1/3 | Nutrition, child/adolescent mortality, maternal health |
| Education | 1/3 | Years of schooling, school attendance |
| Standard of Living | 1/3 | Cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets, bank account |
A person is identified as MPI-poor if deprived in at least one-third (33%) of the weighted indicators. India's National MPI (2021, 2023) reports have shown a significant decline in multidimensional poverty, driven substantially by improvements in nutrition, sanitation & cooking-fuel access — attributed partly to Swachh Bharat Mission, Ujjwala Yojana & Poshan Abhiyan convergence.
8.Hunger & Malnutrition — Concepts
Undernutrition
Insufficient intake of calories/protein relative to requirement — manifests as stunting, wasting & underweight in children.
Stunting
Low height-for-age — reflects chronic/long-term undernutrition, often irreversible after age 2 ("first 1000 days" window).
Wasting
Low weight-for-height — reflects acute, recent undernutrition or illness; India has among the world's highest child wasting rates.
Hidden Hunger
Micronutrient deficiency (iron, iodine, Vitamin A, zinc) despite adequate calorie intake — often invisible without clinical testing.
India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5, 2019-21) shows persistent, though gradually declining, child stunting (~35.5%) & wasting (~19.3%) rates, alongside very high anaemia prevalence among women & children — reflecting the multidimensional, layered nature of India's nutrition challenge that calorie-adequacy statistics alone cannot capture.
9.Global Hunger Index (GHI)
Published annually by Concern Worldwide (Ireland) & Welthungerhilfe (Germany). Computed using 4 indicators, standardised & combined into a 100-point severity scale (0 = no hunger, 100 = worst).
| Indicator | Weight | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| Undernourishment | 1/3 | Share of population with insufficient caloric intake (FAO estimate) |
| Child Stunting | 1/6 | Share of children under 5 with low height-for-age |
| Child Wasting | 1/6 | Share of children under 5 with low weight-for-height |
| Child Mortality | 1/3 | Mortality rate of children under 5 (all causes) |
10.Inequality-Poverty-Hunger Nexus
Inequality — unequal distribution of income, assets & opportunity — interacts with poverty & hunger in a mutually reinforcing cycle central to the "growth vs equity" Mains debate.
- High inequality can coexist with declining absolute poverty — economic growth benefits may accrue disproportionately to upper income/wealth deciles even as headcount poverty falls (India's post-1991 growth-inequality debate; World Inequality Report data on top-decile income/wealth share).
- Asset & land inequality restricts poor households' access to productive resources & collateral for credit, perpetuating chronic, intergenerational poverty.
- Gender & social inequality (caste, region) determine intra-household & intra-community food distribution — contributing to hunger even in aggregate food-surplus regions/households ("entitlement failure" in Amartya Sen's famine theory, extended to chronic hunger).
- Rising inequality can undermine the poverty-reducing elasticity of growth — i.e., the same GDP growth rate reduces poverty less when inequality is high — hence the policy emphasis on inclusive growth, redistribution & social protection floors.
"Famines... are, in fact, so easy to prevent that it is amazing that they are allowed to occur at all." — Amartya Sen, on entitlement failure as the root of hunger even amid food availability Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, Amartya Sen (1981)
11.Government Initiatives
| Scheme | Focus | Key Feature |
|---|---|---|
| National Food Security Act, 2013 | Food entitlement | Legal right to subsidised foodgrain for ~67% of population (75% rural, 50% urban) via Targeted PDS |
| PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana / NFSA extension | Free foodgrain | Launched 2020 (COVID relief); Cabinet approved free 5 kg/person/month for 5 years from January 2024 |
| Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) | Child nutrition | Anganwadi-based supplementary nutrition, health check-ups, pre-school education — India's flagship early-childhood scheme since 1975 |
| Poshan Abhiyan / Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0 | Malnutrition reduction | Convergence mission targeting stunting, wasting, anaemia & low birth weight through technology-enabled monitoring |
| MGNREGA | Rural income support | 100 days guaranteed wage employment — reduces transient/seasonal rural poverty (cross-link Topic 05) |
| PM-KISAN & PM Awas Yojana | Income & asset support | Direct income transfer to farmer families; pucca housing for the rural/urban poor |
| Aspirational Districts Programme / ADP 2.0 (Aspirational Blocks) | Backward-region poverty | NITI Aayog convergence programme — 112 districts (2018), extended to 500 blocks under Aspirational Blocks Programme (2023) |
12.Current Affairs Anchor (2024-26)
NITI Aayog National MPI 2023: Reported approx. 24.82 crore people escaped multidimensional poverty in India between 2013-14 and 2022-23; UP, Bihar, MP & Rajasthan showed the largest absolute reductions in the number of MPI-poor.
Global Hunger Index 2024: India ranked in the "serious" hunger-severity category among assessed countries; Government of India continued to formally reject the ranking's methodology, particularly the undernourishment indicator.
NFSA Free Foodgrain Extension: Cabinet approved continuation of free foodgrain (5 kg/person/month) under NFSA for 5 years from January 2024, replacing the earlier subsidised-rate provision under the Act.
HCES 2023-24: Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data indicated a sharp decline in the share of food in total household spending and narrowing rural-urban consumption gaps — used by some analysts to argue for updated poverty-line recalculation, though no new official line has been notified.
13.Prelims PYQs
With reference to India's Multidimensional Poverty Index, consider the following statements:
1. It is computed jointly by NITI Aayog and OPHI-UNDP for India using NFHS data.
2. It has three equally-weighted dimensions — Health, Education, and Standard of Living.
3. A person is identified as MPI-poor if deprived in at least half of the weighted indicators.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (a) — Statements 1 and 2 are correct: NITI Aayog computes India's National MPI using NFHS data, based on the OPHI-UNDP global methodology, across three equally-weighted dimensions. Statement 3 is incorrect — the deprivation threshold is one-third (33%), not half, of weighted indicators.
Consider the following statements regarding poverty-line estimation in India:
1. The Alagh Task Force (1979) first formally adopted calorie-intake norms of 2400 kcal (rural) and 2100 kcal (urban).
2. The Lakdawala Committee (1993) introduced state-specific poverty lines using state-level CPI.
3. The Rangarajan Committee's recommended poverty line was officially adopted by the Government of India in 2014.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only (b) 1 and 2 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer: (b) — Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is incorrect — the Rangarajan Committee's report was submitted in 2014 but never formally adopted as the official poverty line; India currently has no officially notified poverty line.
The Global Hunger Index is jointly published by which of the following organisations?
(a) FAO and WHO (b) Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe (c) UNICEF and World Bank (d) UNDP and OPHI
Answer: (b) — The GHI is published annually by Concern Worldwide (Ireland) and Welthungerhilfe (Germany). Option (d) UNDP-OPHI publishes the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, a related but distinct index — a common distractor.
Which of the following are among the four indicators used to calculate the Global Hunger Index?
1. Undernourishment 2. Child stunting 3. Adult literacy rate 4. Child wasting 5. Child mortality
Select the correct answer using the code below:
(a) 1, 2, 4 and 5 only (b) 1, 3, 4 and 5 only (c) 2, 3, 4 and 5 only (d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Answer: (a) — GHI's four indicators are undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. Adult literacy rate is not a GHI component (it is unrelated to the hunger-severity composite).
With reference to poverty estimation in India, the Tendulkar Committee's poverty line was based on which of the following?
(a) Fixed calorie-intake norms alone
(b) Mixed Reference Period consumption expenditure covering food, education, health and conveyance
(c) Median national income adjusted for inflation
(d) A composite of income, assets and social indicators
Answer: (b) — The Tendulkar Committee (2009) shifted away from pure calorie norms to MRP-based consumption expenditure including non-food essentials like education, health and conveyance — its key methodological departure from earlier committees.
The National Food Security Act, 2013 covers what approximate proportion of India's population under the Targeted Public Distribution System?
(a) 50% of the population uniformly
(b) Approximately 67% of the population (75% rural, 50% urban)
(c) 100% of the below-poverty-line population only
(d) 40% of the population uniformly
Answer: (b) — NFSA, 2013 guarantees subsidised foodgrain to approximately 67% of the population, split as 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population, identified via priority household and Antyodaya categories.
Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) primarily delivers its services through which of the following grassroots institutions?
(a) Primary Health Centres (b) Anganwadi Centres (c) Gram Panchayats (d) Self-Help Groups
Answer: (b) — ICDS, launched in 1975, delivers supplementary nutrition, health check-ups, immunisation referral and pre-school non-formal education primarily through Anganwadi Centres staffed by Anganwadi workers and helpers.
Consider the following statements about hunger and malnutrition indicators:
1. Stunting refers to low weight-for-height, reflecting acute undernutrition.
2. Wasting refers to low height-for-age, reflecting chronic undernutrition.
3. "Hidden hunger" refers to micronutrient deficiency despite adequate calorie intake.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only (b) 3 only (c) 1, 2 and 3 (d) 2 only
Answer: (b) — Statement 3 alone is correct. Statements 1 and 2 are swapped: stunting is actually low height-for-age (chronic), and wasting is low weight-for-height (acute) — a classic distractor testing whether candidates confuse the two terms.
Who among the following developed the "capability approach" linking poverty to the deprivation of basic freedoms and functionings, later influencing the Human Development Index?
(a) Mahbub ul Haq (b) Amartya Sen (c) Jean Dreze (d) Angus Deaton
Answer: (b) — Amartya Sen developed the capability approach. Mahbub ul Haq (option a) operationalised Sen's ideas into the UNDP's Human Development Index — a frequently tested distinction between the theorist and the index's institutional architect.
With reference to the Lakdawala Committee's contribution to poverty estimation in India, which of the following statements is correct?
(a) It introduced the Multidimensional Poverty Index for India
(b) It introduced state-specific poverty lines adjusted using state-level Consumer Price Indices
(c) It shifted the poverty line basis from calories to consumption expenditure entirely
(d) It recommended abolishing the Public Distribution System
Answer: (b) — The Lakdawala Committee (1993) retained the calorie-norm anchor but introduced state-specific poverty lines using state-level CPI-AL (rural) and CPI-IW (urban), delinking poverty estimation from a single national line. The MPI (option a) came decades later via NITI Aayog.
14.Mains PYQs
Can the strategy of regional resource-based planning help in the reduction of poverty and inequality in India?
Model Answer Structure:
- Define regional resource-based planning: targeting interventions to a region's specific resource endowment (agro-climatic, mineral, human capital) rather than uniform national schemes.
- Rationale for poverty reduction: India's poverty is spatially concentrated (EAG states, tribal/forest districts) — uniform schemes underperform where local constraints (irrigation, connectivity, market access) differ sharply.
- Existing examples: Aspirational Districts Programme's convergence model, Command Area Development in canal-irrigated regions, watershed development in rain-fed areas.
- Link to inequality reduction: targeted resource investment in backward regions can narrow inter-regional disparity rather than merely redistributing income within already-developed regions.
- Limitations: requires strong state-capacity & data systems for granular targeting; risk of elite capture at local level; needs convergence across multiple ministries/schemes.
- Conclusion: resource-based planning is necessary but insufficient alone — must be paired with human-capital investment & institutional reform for durable poverty-inequality reduction.
Though there has been a decline in the poverty ratio in India, poverty alleviation has not been proportionate to the growth in the national income. Discuss.
Model Answer Structure:
- State the paradox: GDP growth since 1991 has been robust, but poverty-decline elasticity has been lower than East Asian comparators.
- Reason 1 — jobless/informal growth: growth concentrated in capital-intensive sectors; informal employment dominates, limiting wage-led poverty reduction.
- Reason 2 — rising inequality: disproportionate income/wealth gains to upper deciles reduce the poverty-reducing elasticity of aggregate growth.
- Reason 3 — regional/sectoral unevenness: agriculture's share of workforce remains high relative to its GDP share, trapping rural labour in low-productivity work.
- Evidence: cite MPI decline (24.82 crore escaping poverty, 2013-14 to 2022-23) alongside persistent regional disparity (UP, Bihar lagging).
- Way forward: skilling, labour-intensive manufacturing push, agricultural diversification & strengthened social-protection floors to improve growth's poverty elasticity.
"Despite implementation of various programmes for eradication of poverty, poverty still exists in India." Examine the reasons for the failure and suggest measures for effective implementation.
Model Answer Structure:
- Acknowledge progress alongside persistence: substantial MPI decline yet a significant residual poor population remains, especially in specific regions/social groups.
- Reasons for shortfall — design: poor targeting (exclusion/inclusion errors), fragmented scheme architecture without convergence.
- Reasons for shortfall — delivery: leakages, corruption, last-mile implementation gaps, particularly in remote/tribal areas.
- Reasons for shortfall — structural: schemes address symptoms (income transfer) without addressing root causes (asset inequality, low skill levels).
- Governance correction already underway: DBT/JAM trinity has reduced leakage significantly (cross-link Topic 02) but does not fix design/structural gaps.
- Suggested measures: real-time MPI-based dynamic targeting, convergence-based delivery (Aspirational Districts model), strengthened grievance redressal & social audit mechanisms (cross-link Topic 03).
Discuss the various social problems arising out of the speedy process of urbanisation in India, with particular reference to urban poverty.
Model Answer Structure:
- Context: rapid, largely unplanned urbanisation outpacing civic infrastructure & formal housing supply.
- Urban poverty manifestations: slum proliferation, informal-sector employment dominance, lack of secure tenure.
- Linked social problems: overcrowding, sanitation deficits, crime, social fragmentation & erosion of traditional community support structures.
- Vulnerable-group dimension: migrant workers, women & children in slums face compounded vulnerability (health, safety, education access).
- Government responses: PMAY-Urban, Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT — assess implementation gaps (cross-link Topic 05).
- Way forward: inclusive urban planning, affordable-housing finance, in-situ slum redevelopment over forced eviction.
"Micro-Finance as an anti-poverty vaccine is not working." Do you agree with the given statement? Give reasons.
Model Answer Structure:
- Present the case for microfinance's promise: extends credit to unbanked poor, especially women, bypassing collateral requirements.
- Case against — over-indebtedness: multiple-lending & high effective interest rates have triggered borrower distress in several states (Andhra Pradesh MFI crisis, 2010).
- Case against — limited productive use: small ticket sizes often fund consumption rather than income-generating investment.
- Case against — incomplete substitute: does not address underlying asset, skill or market-access deprivation driving poverty.
- Balanced view: microfinance has demonstrable benefits for women's economic agency & consumption smoothing, but is not a standalone poverty solution.
- Conclusion: microfinance must be complemented with skilling, market linkages & regulatory safeguards (RBI's MFI regulations post-2010) to be effective.
Distinguish between the Tendulkar Committee and Rangarajan Committee methodologies for poverty estimation in India, and explain why India currently has no official poverty line.
Model Answer Structure:
- Tendulkar methodology: uniform poverty line basket, MRP consumption expenditure including health/education; criticised as too low.
- Rangarajan methodology: separate rural/urban baskets, explicit nutritional-normative anchor plus non-food essentials; higher threshold.
- Key numeric contrast: Tendulkar ~₹27/33 per day vs Rangarajan ~₹32/47 per day (rural/urban, 2011-12 prices).
- Why no official line today: Rangarajan report never formally adopted; Planning Commission dissolved in 2015; NITI Aayog has no mandate to notify a poverty line.
- Current substitute: reliance on National MPI & HCES data instead of a single monetary threshold.
Discuss the objectives and salient features of the National Food Security Act, 2013.
Model Answer Structure:
- Objective: convert food subsidy from a welfare scheme into a justiciable legal entitlement.
- Coverage: ~67% of population (75% rural, 50% urban) through priority household & Antyodaya Anna Yojana categories.
- Entitlements: subsidised foodgrain quotas per person per month at fixed issue prices.
- Special provisions: maternity benefit, take-home ration/hot cooked meals for children via ICDS & mid-day meal linkage.
- Grievance redressal: mandated District Grievance Redressal Officers & State Food Commissions.
- Implementation challenges: identification errors, PDS leakages (partly addressed via Aadhaar-seeded DBT/One Nation One Ration Card).
"The most crucial aspect of the Multidimensional Poverty Index is its emphasis on non-income deprivations." Discuss.
Model Answer Structure:
- Explain MPI's non-income focus: health, education & living-standard indicators capture deprivation invisible to purely income-based poverty lines.
- Why this matters: a household can be non-poor by income yet deprived in sanitation, clean fuel or schooling — MPI reveals this gap.
- Policy targeting advantage: allows scheme convergence targeting specific deprivations (e.g., Swachh Bharat for sanitation-deprived households) rather than blanket income transfers.
- Limitation: MPI is a headcount-style measure too — doesn't capture depth/severity variation as well as some alternative indices.
- Conclusion: MPI complements, rather than replaces, income-poverty measurement for holistic policy design.
Explain the rationale behind the Global Hunger Index and discuss the Government of India's objections to its methodology.
Model Answer Structure:
- GHI's rationale: provide a comparable, composite cross-country measure of hunger severity combining undernourishment & child health outcomes.
- Composite structure: four indicators — undernourishment (1/3), stunting (1/6), wasting (1/6), mortality (1/3) — combined into a 100-point scale.
- GoI's methodological objection 1: undernourishment indicator relies on a small-sample Gallup opinion-poll-based FAO estimate, not actual nutrition-intake surveys.
- GoI's methodological objection 2: three of four indicators pertain only to children, making GHI a poor proxy for whole-population hunger.
- Balanced assessment: while methodological critique has merit, India's own NFHS data corroborates high stunting/wasting/anaemia levels independently.
- Way forward: strengthen India's own nutrition-surveillance data systems (Poshan Tracker) to enable evidence-based international engagement rather than only contesting external rankings.
15.Revision Box — 15-Point Recap
- Poverty = inadequate command over resources; Sen's capability approach broadens it to deprivation of freedoms/functionings.
- Types: absolute, relative, chronic, transient, rural, urban poverty; India uses only the absolute approach officially.
- Causes: historical, demographic, economic, social, structural, governance & environmental factors — multi-causal.
- Pre-1993: Calorie-norm poverty line (2400/2100 kcal) via Alagh Task Force (1979), building on Dandekar-Rath (1971).
- Lakdawala Committee (1993): state-specific poverty lines using state CPI-AL/CPI-IW.
- Tendulkar Committee (2009): shifted to MRP consumption basket including education/health; criticised as too low (~₹27-33/day).
- Rangarajan Committee (2014): higher rural/urban poverty lines (~₹32-47/day); never officially adopted.
- India currently has no officially notified poverty line — relies on MPI & HCES.
- MPI: 3 dimensions (Health, Education, Standard of Living), 12 indicators, 1/3 deprivation threshold.
- NITI Aayog National MPI (2021, 2023): ~24.82 crore escaped multidimensional poverty, 2013-14 to 2022-23.
- Hunger indicators: undernutrition, stunting (chronic/height), wasting (acute/weight), hidden hunger (micronutrient).
- GHI: 4 indicators — undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, child mortality; GoI contests methodology.
- Inequality & poverty/hunger interact — unequal growth benefits & asset inequality perpetuate chronic poverty.
- Key schemes: NFSA 2013, ICDS, Poshan Abhiyan, MGNREGA, PM-KISAN, Aspirational Districts/Blocks Programme.
- NFSA free-foodgrain scheme extended for 5 years from January 2024; GHI 2024 placed India in "serious" category.