Multidimensional poverty in India: a study on regional disparities

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the regional disparities of multidimensional poverty (MPI) in the context of India. This study to our knowledge is the first of its kind which examined MPI disparity at a regional level. The study has classified the geographic area of India into six regions: Northern, Eastern, North Eastern, Central, Western and Southern region. Further, we explore MPI across population sub-groups within a region. Using the latest available household data from the National Family and Health Survey over 2005-2006 and 2015-2016 we explored how at the regional level multidimensional poverty changed within a decade. The paper estimates MPI in India at a regional level following the methodology of Alkire and Foster (2011). The Eastern rural region has the highest MPI 0.43 (2005-2006) and 0.21 (2015-2016). The lowest MPI is in the Northern region 0.14 and 0.03 respectively. The Northern region further has lowest MPI across all social sub-groups. The results also demonstrate regional concentration of MPI particularly in the Central and Eastern regions. A major disquieting feature is that the regional variation in MPI across the Eastern and the Northern region increased by four times in 2015-2016 compared to the earlier period. The study further obtains that though multidimensional poverty has reduced significantly over the decade the decline is regressive. It can be traced to the nature of regressivity in the decline in the different deprivation indicators. The present study suggests that India must endeavour the process of balanced regional development.