MPI: Yet Another Marker For India’s Poverty Problem

Breaking away from the conventional method to measure poverty, the National Institution for Transforming India, better known as Niti Aayog, released its first Multidim­ensional Poverty Index (MPI) report in the last week of November. Based on the National Health Family Survey for 2015-16, the report disclosed that one in every four persons in India was multidimensionally poor during that time period.

At this point in time, the Narendra Modi government was yet to launch several components of its anti-poverty policy. Anticipating improvement in the national MPI when the next edition of the report is brought out, vice-chairman of Niti Aayog Rajiv Kumar wrote in the MPI rep­ort, “India has made remarkable strides thro­ugh flagship programmatic interventions.”