India has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country, according to the new report by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The report says that in a population of 121 crore, India has more than half of its population living below the poverty line.

“India has the world's largest number of multidimensionally poor, more than half of the population, at 612 million (61.2 crore),” said the Human Development Report 2011 of the UNDP titled ‘Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All’. The data estimation is based on national sample survey of 2005.

The number of poverty estimates by the UNDP is based on multidimensional poverty index (MPI), taking account of factors such as health services, access to clean water and cooking fuels, plus basic household goods and home construction standards. The number of poor people, as per the UNDP figure, is more than the Tendulkar committee figure of 37 crore, which is based on uni-dimensional estimate. The revised Tendulkar committee puts the number of poor in the country at 40.74 crore.

According to the World Bank (2005) which counts poverty on income level (living below $1.25 per day), poor people in India were 456 million (45.6 crore). In 2009, the Asian Development Bank estimated the number of poor population in India at 622-740 million. Last year, the Oxford university calculated India’s figure at 645 million (64.5 crore).

However, according to the 2011 UNDP figure, 28.6 percent of India’s population is in severe poverty, while 16.4 percent population is vulnerable to poverty. The report also added, “Ninety-seven percent of the multidimensinally poor lack access to clean drinking water, toilets, or modern cooking fuels – and 18 percent lack all three in South Asia.”

The report mentioned that landlocked country Niger in the African continent has the highest share of multidimensionally poor, at 92 percent. Ethiopia and Mali have 89 percent and 87 percent respectively.

However, India ranked a low 134 among 187 countries in terms of the human development index (HDI), based on progress in health, education and income indicators. Last year, India’s position was 119 out of 169 countries. Eighteen new countries were included in the counting the figure in this year.

“India has to do a lot on health aspect and retaining mean years of children in the school,” Seeta Prabhu, senior adviser, UNDP India told Governance Now. According to the report, the mean years of schooling for Indian children turned at 4.4 years, lower than even Bangladesh, which is at 4.8 years.  

India's gender inequality index was 0.6, the highest in South Asia, according to the report. India’s HDI for 2011 is 0.547. However, when the value is discounted for inequality, the HDI falls to 0.392, a loss of 28.3 per cent due to inequality in the distribution of the dimension indices.

“India has made significant progress but this trajectory may be threatened by environmental risks and inequality,” said Caitlin Wiesen, UNDP country director.

The report hinted that by 2050, the average HDI could drop by 12 percent in South Asia due to the effects of global warming on agricultural production, access to clean water, and pollution.

Jairam Ramesh, the rural development minister, who released the report said, “We can’t afford to put off environmental concerns. We have to increase environmental issues into developmental concerns now, otherwise we will endanger livelihood.”

However Ramesh said year-on-year comparisons were not practical. “Any change in development indicators should be measured over a longer period of time.”

Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the table in the 2011 HDI, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Burundi are at the bottom.