Multidimensional Poverty in Rural India: An Exploratory Study of Purulia District

This paper explores the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty in rural India based on a self-designed survey of 700 households during 2018–2019 in Purulia district, a backward-most rural district in West Bengal. Applying the methodology recognized by UNDP for measuring multidimensional poverty index (MPI), this study has reported that thirty nine per cent of the sample households are income poor while thirty seven per cent of the sample households are multidimensionally poor. However, one-fourth of non-income poor are multidimensionally poor, and 60% of the multidimensionally poor are income poor. MPI for Purulia district is 0.161 which is nearly 1.4 times of the MPI for India as a whole in 2018. In Purulia district, the incidence, depth, severity and intensity of income poverty are the highest among the households belonging to tribal community, followed by SCs, OBCs and then general castes. The ranks of the social castes in respect of multidimensional poverty are exactly equivalent as their ranks in income poverty. Among the selected indicators, deprivation of access to improved cooking fuel and deprivation of access to improved sanitation are two leading contributors to the district MPI followed by the indicators, regarding material of residence, suffering from hunger. Therefore, further expansion of infrastructure regarding food security, sanitation facility, affordable housing, access to improved cooking fuel and awareness of the households regarding the importance of these infrastructures are urgent policy recommendation for curbing the incidence and the intensity of multidimensional poverty in Purulia district.