The essence is that a large part of the Indian population is still affected by poverty. Whereas the World Bank’s scale for measuring poverty itself has been at the center of criticism. Many experts have described this as the very minimum scale.
The World Bank has admitted in its latest report that since 2020 (i.e. Corona period), the process of poverty reduction in the world including India has stopped. The Bank’s latest assessment is that currently 12 crore 90 lakh people in India are living in a state of extreme poverty. The World Bank’s measure of extreme poverty is a spending power of less than $2.15 per day (in purchasing power parity – PPP terms). This amount currently works out to around Rs 44 per day on PPP. However, since the World Bank has placed India in the category of middle-income countries, it says that the scale of extreme poverty should be applied to India at $ 6.85 per day (approximately Rs 139 in PPP).
If we look at this criterion, more than 43 crore people in India are in a state of extreme poverty. This number is more than the total number of people falling below the extreme poverty line in India in 1990 (India’s population then was about 88 crores). The World Bank has criticized the methodology adopted by the Government of India in the recently released Household Consumption and Expenditure Survey Report – 2022-23. On the basis of this survey, the government had claimed significant progress towards eradicating poverty in India. That is, the overall essence is that there are still a large number of people suffering from poverty in India. Whereas the World Bank’s scale for measuring poverty itself has been at the center of criticism.
Many experts have described it as an arbitrarily prepared minimum scale. If we consider that in a middle income country like India, the World Bank does not consider a person with a spending power of Rs 139 per day as poor, then it can be understood to what extent this formula is minimal. After all, what level of consumption can a person achieve with this amount of money? However, even according to this formula, this form of ‘fastest growing economy’ has emerged, it becomes self-evident what is the direction of our development.