India reduces its poverty number from 27 crore to 8.4 crore

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India made strides in reducing its poverty number. According to findings of a new study only 84 million (8.4 crore) Indians are poor as on 2017 down from 270 million(27 crore) in 2011.

The findings of the study states that poverty, as per the Tendulkar Poverty line, reduced from 14.9 per cent in 2011 to 7.0 per cent in 2017 – the fastest pace the country has seen yet. The findings, which are part of the joint paper titled Poverty, Inequality and Inclusive Growth in India: 2011/12-2017/18 by Surjit S Bhalla, Arvind Virmani and Karan Bhasin, were presented to the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER).

The authors also conclude that the record pace of poverty reduction was due to high growth rate and government measures such as MGNREGA, Direct Benefit Transfers, PM Kisan Yojana, LPG subsidy and others. They further provide three additional estimates based on the India Human Development Survey at 7.4 per cent and at 3.8 per cent for the year 2017 while the fourth estimate based on national accounts puts poverty in India in 2017 at 3.4 per cent.