Government of India’s premier thinktank NITI Aayog has published its first ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2021- Baseline Report’. As per MPI, Kerala has lowest poverty (0.71%) and Bihar has highest poverty (51.91%). This index is India’s first ever index based on the NFHS Round 4 data (2015-16). Odisha has 29.35% multidimensional poverty. Low nutrition, less access to safe cooking fuel, less sanitation coverage and less housing coverage are contributing towards high multidimensional poverty. Odisha’s performance is noteworthy in comparison to neighbouring and comparable states. Though Odisha has performed well between NFHS – 4 and NFHS – 5, due to historical incidence of backwardness, there is broad gap to catch up with lowest MPI states. Odisha’s poverty has precipitously decreased by 24.61 percentage points from 57.20% (2004-05) to 32.59% (2011-12). Average annual decline in poverty is 3.52 percentage points. This is highest reduction in poverty among major states in the country. It is worth noting that, India saw 15 percentage points poverty reduction and average annual decline in poverty for the country was 2.14 percentage points during the same period. The state has performed way better than nation and major states in terms of elimination of poverty over last two decades. The state has been largely successful in multidimensional development and eliminating poverty at a faster level than nation. Among other accomplishment in SDG, the achievements of the state is remarkable in the domain of elimination of poverty in lass two decades. Several welfare measures with targeted intervention has lead to achievement of fastest poverty reduction and state is targeting to reduce poverty to 10% by the end of 2025. Elimination of all forms of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, socio-economic deprivation will lead to achievement of 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development in Odisha.
Pradeep Kumar Panda (Sat,) studied this question.