Skip to main content

World Bank's full marks to UPA? Poverty rates "sharply reduced" in 2005-12, despite severe drought in 2009-10

 
A new World Bank study, released ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi completing two years in office, has said that the India’s national poverty rates fell much more sharply between 2005 and 2012, when the UPA government ruled the country, compared the decade between 1994 and 2005.
The study, carried out by Ambar Narayan and Rinku Murgai, and circulated as a policy research paper, says that poverty rates “decreased from 45 to 37 percent of the population between 1994 and 2005”, and “fell a further 15 percentage points in the next seven years, with similar patterns seen in both rural and urban areas”.
“This was a three‐fold increase in pace, as the country reduced poverty by 2.2 percentage points per year during 2005‐12, relative to the 0.7 percentage point per year decline between 1994 and 2005”, the World Bank study, titled “Looking Back on Two Decades of Poverty and Well-Being in India”, says.
Even during the period between 2005 and 2012, the study says, there were “two distinct phases: a moderate rate of poverty reduction till 2010 (which was still more than twice the rate of change seen between 1994 and 2005), followed by sharp and unprecedented reduction between 2010 and 2012.”
The study underlines, “Some of this volatility needs to be seen in the context of 2009‐10 being a year of particularly severe droughts, which is likely to have dampened the gains between 2005 and 2010 and conversely, accentuated the apparent progress from 2010 to 2012 as the economy rebounded to its ‘trend’ performance.”
In absolute numbers, the study, while accounting for the rise in population, says that the number of poor people remained “stubbornly high” at over 400 million in the eleven years between 1994 and 2005. However, in the next seven years, 137 million people (roughly 20 million per year) escaped poverty”, with 270 million people living in poverty in 2012.
“Poverty reduction in India was fueled by rising consumption levels, while consumption inequality remained more or less stable since 2005”, the study says, adding, “Consumption inequality measured by the Gini coefficient, after rising appreciably between 1994 and 2005, has remained almost unchanged in both rural and urban areas since then.”
“Consumption growth of the bottom 40% averaged an anemic 0.8 percent per year between 1994 and 2005, and increased four‐fold to 3.3 percent per year between 2005 and 2012, averaging more than 5 percent annually during the last two years of this period”, the study says.
“With upward mobility, the middle class has expanded sharply and is the fastest growing group between 2005 and 2012”, the study says, adding, “The middle class increased from 23 percent to 34 percent of the population.”
Coming to “non‐monetary dimensions of welfare”, the study says, “Between 2005 and 2012, significant improvements occurred in infant and child (under age 5) mortality rates, literacy rate among working adults, and the share of children under age 5 who are not underweight.”
“The decline in illiteracy among adults – from 38 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2012 – is matched by a 9 percent increase in the share of adults who have completed secondary education or more during this period”, the study says.
It adds, “This indicates a positive trend of skilling of the Indian labour force as secondary school enrollments and completion have increased over the years. This trend could also have an impact in terms of reducing vulnerability.”
However, it regrets, “Progress in access to piped water, sanitation and reducing stunting among children under age 5 has been much slower.”
---
Download study HERE

Comments

TRENDING

Will Trump administration use US religious freedom report to further pressure India into submission?

Already under pressure from the Trump administration, which has reportedly asked India—successfully, some would say—to remove high tariffs on American products, there is reason to wonder whether Washington might use the recommendations of the latest United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report to further act against the Government of India.

Gujarat No 1 here too? Cops justify torture, insist: Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, migrants are 'naturally prone' to crimes

A new report, "Status of Policing in India Report 2025: Police Torture and (Un)Accountability", states that Gujarat tops the list of 16 states and one Union Territory, with 63% of its police personnel "strongly endorsing" torture. Furthermore, 49% of Gujarat’s police personnel were found to have what the report calls a "high propensity" for torture, considering it "necessary and acceptable" for obtaining information across various crime categories—second only to Jharkhand (50%). In sharp contrast, Kerala has the lowest percentage of police personnel "justifying" torture (3%) and the lowest "high propensity" for violence (1%).

A traditional Marxian view? Like nuclear weapons, AI poses 'direct existential threat' to human civilization

The other day, I was talking with YS Gill , whom I have known as an incisive analyst since my youth, when he, like me, was associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI). A passionate science activist committed to creating awareness of scientific thinking, he told me about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would lead to mass unemployment. Predicting that AI would replace human intervention in India’s call centers, he estimated that about 70 lakh people would be rendered jobless.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.