Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India, according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index MPI As per the index, 51.91 per cent of the population of Bihar is poor, followed by 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand and 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. Meghalaya 32.67 per cent is at the fifth position while Madhya Pradesh has placed fourth in the index.
Kerala 0.71 per cent Goa 3.76 per cent Sikkim 3.82 per cent Tamil Nadu 4.89 per cent and Punjab 5.59 per cent have the lowest poverty in India and are at the bottom of the index.
The report said India's national MPI measure uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative OPHI and the United Nations Development Programme UNDP Importantly, as a measure of multidimensional poverty, it captures multiple and simultaneous deprivation faced by households.
India's MPI has three equally weighted dimensions, health, education and standard of living - which are represented by 12 indicators namely nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank accounts.
The Sustainable Development Goals SDG framework, adopted by 193 countries in 2015, has redefined development policies, government priorities, and metrics for measuring development progress across the world.
The SDG framework, with 17 global goals and 169 targets, has a wider scope and scale than the Millennium Development Goals MDG predecessor.
Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that the development of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index of India is an important contribution to the implementation of a public policy tool that monitors multidimensional poverty, informs evidence-based and focused interventions, and ensures that no one is left behind. Kumar said that this baseline report of India's first national MPI measure is based on the reference period 2015 -- 16 of the National Family Health Survey NFHS. The national MPI measure has been constructed by using 12 key components that cover areas such as health and nutrition, education and standard of living.