ECONOMY
India eradicates 17.1 crore people from extreme poverty between 2011 and 2023
- IBJ Bureau
- Apr 27, 2025
India has lifted 171 million (17.1 crore) people from extreme poverty in the decade between 2011-12 and 2022-23, the World Bank has said.
“Over the past decade, India has significantly reduced poverty. Extreme poverty (living on less than $2.15 per day) fell from 16.2 per cent in 2011-12 to 2.3 per cent in 2022-23, lifting 171 million people above this line, the World Bank has said in its Poverty & Equity Brief' on India.
It added that rural extreme poverty dropped from 18.4 per cent to 2.8 per cent, and urban from 10.7 per cent to 1.1 per cent, narrowing the rural-urban gap from 7.7 to 1.7 percentage points, a 16 per cent annual decline.
The brief said that India also transitioned into the lower-middle-income category. Using the $3.65 per day LMIC poverty line, poverty fell from 61.8 per cent to 28.1 per cent, lifting 378 million (37.8 crore) people out of poverty.
Rural poverty dropped from 69 per cent to 32.5 per cent, and urban poverty from 43.5 per cent to 17.2 per cent, reducing the rural-urban gap from 25 to 15 percentage points with a 7 per cent annual decline.
India’s five most populous States Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh accounted for 65 per cent of the country’s extreme poor in 2011-12 and contributed to two-thirds of the overall decline in extreme poverty by 2022-23, it has said.
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