Poverty removal not just slogan: PM Modi on World Bank data

India has achieved one of the world's fastest declines in poverty, with the extreme poverty rate collapsing by 90% between 2011 and 2023 to a mere 2.6%, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday. He emphasized that the goal of eliminating poverty is a firm commitment of his government, going beyond it being just a slogan.

According to the World Bank's latest figures, shared by Modi on Instagram, the number of people living in extreme poverty in India has plummeted from nearly 1 in 4 to roughly 1 in 38 during the 12-year period. Modi also highlighted that about 50 crore people have been lifted out of poverty in this span of time. Moreover, employment has grown by 13.4 crore between 2017 and 2023, nearly double the increase in India's working-age population.

The Prime Minister also noted that inequality has significantly reduced, with India's Gini index dropping by over 20% from 29 in 2011 to 23 in 2023. The Gini index is a measure of how equitably income or wealth is distributed in a population, with a lower number indicating greater equality. The World Bank's recent Poverty and Equity brief projects that India's poverty rate, defined at $4.2 a day, will further decline to 12.1% in 2028 from 57.7% in 2011, having fallen to 16.1% in 2023.

Extreme poverty, defined as spending $3 a day, has also declined from 27.1% in 2011 to 2.6% in 2023. This progress has been driven primarily by robust consumption growth, rising employment, particularly among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies. However, despite these improvements, wage disparities remain significant, with median earnings among the top 10% of workers being about 13 times those of the bottom 10% in 2023, as stated by the World Bank.