Development debate

The policy must now go beyond poverty numbers

A new discussion paper released by the NITI Aayog this week showed that about 248.2 million Indians escaped multidimensional poverty over the past nine years. Written by NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand and senior advisor Yogesh Suri, with technical inputs from the United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Policy and Human Development Initiative, the paper intended to show the impact of various government programmes on multidimensional poverty. The paper, which reflects the personal views of the authors, found that multidimensional poverty declined from 29.17 per cent in 2013-14 to 11.28 per cent in 2022-23, and the level of poverty was