Rashtriya Janta Dal leader Tejwashwi Yadav on Monday slammed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after the state was found to be the poorest state of India in NITI Aayog's 'poverty index' report.
The Niti Aayog in its first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report released on Friday said Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh were found to be the poorest states in the country. Bihar also ranked at the bottom in various other categories, including percentage of population deprived of maternal health, percentage of population deprived of years of schooling, school attendance and percentage of population deprived of cooking fuel and electricity.
Tejashwi Yadav said that if the CM was serious about it, there would've been an improvement. "What's the point of '15 saal bemisaal' if the situation is this worse?" he asked.
According to the report, 51.91 per cent of the population in Bihar is poor, followed by 42.16 in Jharkhand, 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, 36.65 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and 32.67 per cent in Meghalaya.
The MPI seeks to measure poverty across its multiple dimensions and in effect complements existing poverty statistics based on per capita consumption expenditure. It has three equally weighted dimensions – health, education, and standard of living – which in turn are represented by 12 indicators such as nutrition, school attendance, years of schooling, drinking water, sanitation, housing, bank accounts among others, according to the report.
Measuring poverty has evolved globally over the years. The conventional method has been to specify a minimum income (or expenditure) required to purchase a basket of goods and services to meet basic needs. It required defining a poverty line first, which the C Rangarajan committee had estimated in 2014 to be Rs 972 a month per person in rural areas and Rs 1,407 a month per person in urban areas, at 2011-12 prices.
