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New Delhi, October 30, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday highlighted a World Bank report that places India among the countries with the fastest declines in poverty, citing significant improvements in household welfare, employment and access to basic services over the past decade.
According to the World Bank's October 2026 Poverty and Equity Brief, around 49.6 crore people moved above the lower-middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 a day between 2011 and 2023. The poverty rate at this threshold fell from 57.7 per cent to 16.1 per cent during the period.
Extreme poverty, measured against the $3-a-day threshold, also declined sharply from 27.1 per cent to 2.6 per cent. Both poverty lines are based on 2021 purchasing power parity (PPP).
The report said employment increased by 13.4 crore people between 2017 and 2023, nearly twice the rise in the working-age population. Rural women accounted for a substantial share of the increase, with more women entering paid employment and contributing to household earnings.
It also noted that welfare gains across rural and urban households had helped narrow the gap between the two, with progress moving faster in rural areas. Access to electricity reached 99 percent of the population, based on the report's 2022 survey data.
The World Bank attributed the poverty reduction to stronger consumption growth, rising employment, particularly among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies.
Welcoming the findings, Sitharaman said sustained policy efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi had produced tangible results and strengthened the foundations for inclusive growth and economic opportunity.
She said the government remained committed to expanding productive employment, improving household incomes and ensuring effective delivery of public services.
The report also projected a further, though slower, decline in monetary poverty. The poverty rate at the $4.20-a-day threshold is expected to fall from 14.2 per cent in 2026 to 12.1 per cent by 2028. The World Bank cautioned that these indicative projections are based on microsimulations and may change as labor-market and macroeconomic data are updated.
On multidimensional poverty, the report cited a decline in the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) measure from 53.8 per cent in 2005–06 to 16.4 per cent in 2019–21. The World Bank's own multidimensional poverty measure stood at 15.5 per cent in 2022–23.
However, the report noted that poverty is increasingly concentrated among households with lower educational attainment, fewer assets, limited access to stable employment and higher dependency ratios. Wage inequality also remains significant: median earnings among the top 10 per cent of workers were around 13 times those of the bottom 10 per cent in 2023.