Is the decline in multidimensional poverty in India real? Arun Kumar·August 6, 2023 https://theleaflet.in/is-the-decline-in-multidimensional-poverty-in-india-real/ the NITI Aayog has reported that multidimensional poverty in India has declined sharply between 2015–16 (when it was 24.85 percent) and 2019–21 (when it was 14.96 percent). the multidimensional poverty index is based on three broad dimensions— health, education and living standard... Change in multidimensional poverty is then obtained by comparing the data from the fifth National Family Health Survey (NHFS5) (2019–21) with data from NHFS4 (2015–16). NHFS5 is based on two surveys over two years. This is odd because 2020–21 was an abnormal year due to the pandemic.
The NITI Aayog report mentions that 70 percent of the data was collected in the earlier year, 2019–20, just before the pandemic. during the pandemic year of 2020–21, incomes, employment, education and health parameters for the poor suffered a huge setback. The data from 2019–20 is not enough to represent the pandemic and lockdown year of 2020–21.
data on individual variables in NHFS5 is not only suspect due to the impact of the pandemic, as argued above, but also on grounds that the official data often does not represent the correct picture.
At the launch of his book,The Crooked Timber of New India Dr . Prabhakar Parakala was asked about the MDP claim https://www.youtube.com/embed/BYQdK0cpBmA?start=5328&end=5863