Poverty elimination has remained a major challenge right from independence and lies at the core of India’s national development agenda to create a just and equitable society. Given the limited resources, reliable estimation of poverty is the first step towards eradication of poverty as a basic input for design, implementation and monitoring of anti poverty programs. Poverty measurement is also important to serve as a barometer of the extent of the success of strategies for inclusive growth and poverty reduction.
A poverty line is calculated based on of consumption required for maintaining some
minimum standard of living in the country. However, complexities of measuring incidence of
poverty in a comparable manner over time and across regions have given rise to alternative
approaches also such as measures of the depth of poverty and of its severity.
The number is expected to rise to roughly 381-418 million, with the total headcount ratio reaching 50.9-55.87 per cent in 2021-22. Under the same levels of contractions, urban India expects 36 to 46 million additional people to fall under poverty, with the total headcount ratio reaching 39.08- 42.4 per cent.