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In 12 States, a majority of households are still deprived of housing. This includes big States such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand. This is according to the recent NITI Aayog report titled “National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A progress review 2023.”
According to the report, a household is considered deprived of housing if it “has inadequate housing: the floor is made of natural materials, or the roof or wall are made of rudimentary materials.”
The report shows that Manipur had the highest proportion of households deprived of housing (75.5 per cent) in 2019-21. Other States with a high percentage of housing deprivation include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Tripura. On the other hand, Chandigarh, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh fared highly in this index with the households having adequate housing.
A State-wise breakdown of the housing deprivation indicator shows that Ladakh, which still showcased a 56.98 per cent deprivation, witnessed a drastic improvement, declining 31.22 per cent from 2015-16 figures. Other top performers include Odisha, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Also read: BL Explainer: All you want to know about multidimensional poverty in India
On the other hand, Rajasthan (45.73 per cent), saw a 12.18 per cent increase in the number of households deprived of housing in the five-year period. The other States that have shown a deterioration include Lakshadweep, Mizoram and Kerala.
With regard to the total Indian population, 41.37 per cent were deprived of housing in 2019-21, against 45.65 per cent in 2015-16.
When it comes to assets, Indian households appear well placed; only 10.16 per cent of households were deprived. There was an improvement of 3.81 per cent from 2015-16. In terms of bank accounts, Indian households are strongly placed with only 3.69 per cent of households being deprived in 2019-21, compared to 9.66 per cent in the previous survey year. It is to be noted that all three indicators constitute 1/21 of the total weightage in MPI calculation.
Assets, bank account deprivation
An analysis of the report found that Meghalaya (37.03 per cent), Nagaland (29.53 per cent), and Bihar (20.25 per cent) were the states with the highest percentage of households deprived of assets.
The report classifies a household as deprived of assets if it “does not own more than one of these assets: radio, TV, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorbike, or refrigerator, and does not own a car or truck.” In this regard, Chandigarh, Punjab, and Lakshadweep witnessed a good performance, maintaining negligible levels.
Also read: India’s poverty incidences improve, but still alarming among emerging economies
States (and UTs), where the most proportion of people have bank accounts are Chandigarh, Puducherry, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.
However, experts say that this doesn’t say much about poverty alleviation.
Development economist, Venkatesh Athreya, said, “Having a bank account is no guarantee of financial inclusion. A large number of Jan Dhan accounts have little money in them, so merely having an account does not mean much.”
The MPI report, which is based on National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21) and shows the progress from NFHS-4 (2015-16), also found that nearly 13.5 crore people were lifted out of poverty in this five-year period.
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