The extent of poverty and its reduction in India remains a subject of considerable debate. After a gap of more than a decade, the MoSPI (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) conducted two consumer expenditure surveys in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Poverty line has not been defined in these two surveys. Poverty estimates in India post 1973 are made with reference to a basket of goods.The Rangarajan Expert Group in 2011-12 recommended monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) of ₹972 in rural areas and ₹1,407 in urban areas to be the new poverty lines at the all-India level.The MPCE covered primarily food and some essential non-food items. The poverty line so estimated was around 68 per cent and 54 per cent of the respective average MPCE, in rural and urban areas. Poverty should ideally be considered more dynamically and with development.We assume poverty line at 68 per cent of the average all India consumption expenditure in rural areas and 54 per cent of average per capita consumption expenditure in urban areas as arrived at by Rangarajan Committee.Using consumer expenditure surveys of 2023-24 and 2024-25, it corresponds to ₹2,802 per capita per month or ₹93.4 per capita per day in rural areas and ₹3,778 per capita per month or ₹126 per capita per day in urban areas.Using this data, it is observed that 26.8 per cent of total population is under poverty line; 29 per cent of people in rural areas and 22 per cent of people in urban areas.The number of persons below poverty line, defined as above, works out to 374 million people who need subsistence-based interventions.Structural and regionalPoverty in India is structural and regional. As the graph indicates, the four States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal have over 48 per cent of persons below the poverty line, as defined above, though their share in population is fewer than 40 per cent. Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha have more than 45 per cent of population below poverty line.Eighty per cent of poor people reside in the10 States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Jharkhand and in each of these States poverty exceeds 20 per cent of their population.Agriculturally better off northern States of Punjab and Haryana and southern States have much lower poverty ratios.These States, along with Sikkim, having a share in population of over 25 per cent, have a share of just 8 per cent in total BPL persons. Sikkim, Goa and Tripura are among the States that have eliminated poverty.Poverty is predominant in States of subsistence agriculture (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam) or mineral rich (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal). Even in Maharashtra and Karnataka, poverty concentration is more in areas which are mineral rich or of subsistence agriculture.Poverty in these areas is structural in nature with decline slower than the overall. Despite migration of labourers to more productive or industrial townships, poverty has continued to be sticky in these pockets.According to PLFS 2023-24, dependency ratio in poverty-stricken States is higher at 47 per cent as compared to under 42 per cent in better-off States. The share of working persons in poverty-centric areas in industry (excluding construction), information, professional services, banking and public administration and defence at 11 per cent is less than half of that in the better-off States.The higher poverty rates are not necessarily because of rising inequality as the Gini coefficient in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in both rural and urban areas is lower than the average of All-States. These parameters have not changed over the years making the issue structural.Attempts so far to eradicate poverty are not designed to overcome the structural constraints. DMF (District Mineral Foundation) and other funds in mineral areas should be used for upskilling, setting up schools, PHCs (primary health centres), nutrition programmes, infrastructure development, creating incentives to set up processing industries near mining areas and improving diversification of local economy beyond mining. Better use of CSR funds must be made.Not an optimal optionIn areas of subsistence agriculture, migration is not an optimal option as migrants tend to suffer from local issues, including isolation, language issues and outright apathy.Agricultural reforms, land consolidation, cost effective price stabilisation, shift to high value agriculture, increased agricultural productivity and shift of labour to nearby locations in non-agricultural sectors are needed.Emphasis on local initiatives, local resource endowments, local entrepreneurship and targeted time bound social protection systems should guide the philosophy of all programmes.Poverty linePoverty reduction in India has been brought about through social and food security and universal access to basic amenities. International Poverty Line (IPL) defined by World Bank in June 2025 was estimated at $3 a day, adjusted for the purchasing power of money to 2021 prices. Using this as poverty line, World Bank estimated that 5.3 per cent of India’s population was below the threshold of $3 per day (PPP) corresponding to ₹60 per person per day.The Economic Survey and other studies based on the Tendulkar committee methodology and World Bank poverty line indicate a sharp and broad-based decline in poverty. Between 2011-12 and 2023-24, the Survey estimated poverty to have reduced from 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 to 4.7 per cent in 2022-23 and further to 2.3 per cent in 2023-24.This reduction was contributed mainly by social protection systems which increased their coverage from 22 per cent of the population in 2016 to 64.3 per cent in 2025. But, overall, the reality is perhaps more complex.Gopalan is former Secretary, Economic Affairs, and Singhi is former Senior Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance. Views expressed are personalPublished on May 29, 2026