Study Reveals India No More The Poorest; Extreme Poverty Can Be Eliminated By 2030

New Delhi: India, which was stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty, has started to come out of it.

According to a study published in the Future Development blog of Brookings, about 44 Indians come out of the extreme poverty every minute, which is one of the fastest rates of poverty reduction in the world.

The study reveals Nigeria is now home to the largest number of poor, while India has come down to two. If the trend continues, India could climb to spot three with Democratic Republic of Congo taking the second position.

The study published defines extreme poverty as living on less than 1.9$ a day. The blog says, by 2022, less than 3% of Indians will be poor and extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2030.

“Extreme poverty is Nigeria is growing by six people every minute while poverty in India continues to fall,” read the report.

The estimates, however, might not match Indian numbers as the poverty measuring method is different. According to World Bank, between 2004 and 2011, poverty in India declined from 38.9% to 21.2%.

The given study supports the growth story and the 1991 economic reforms that helped reduce poverty, economists suggest. “The challenge ahead is to meet the Sustainable Development Goals that will help realize the study’s findings that India would be able to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030,” said N R Bhanumurthy, a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

To achieve this Millennium Development Goal, Bhanumurthy said, India has to grow continuously “at t7-8% for the remaining period”. “The UN-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals aim to eliminate global poverty by 2030,” he added.

The study showed that an increase in the global income last decades have led to systematic decreases in poverty rates worldwide, with the experience in India and China playing the most important role when it comes to the overall number of persons escaping absolute poverty.