Intervention does push deprivation levels down

livemint.com:

The Niti Aayog released a report on Monday saying that ‘multidimensional poverty’ in India had dropped to about 15% in 2019-21 from almost a quarter in 2015-16, with data drawn from two successive National Family Health Surveys. The think-tank’s second such study, its time-span does not capture pandemic scars. Nor should it be confused with poverty estimates that go by what people consume or the money they need to get by.

Instead, broadly based on a UNDP model, it places a lens on deprivation to offer a snapshot of how India’s worst off are faring on ‘dimensions’ clubbed under indicators of health, education and standard of living. Although its formula is open to critique, its examination of specific aspects of indigence makes it a useful welfare-policy aid. While our gains on health counts like nutrition, maternal health and child-and-adolescent mortality have been modest, with nutritive inadequacies an especially stark let-down, we made impressive progress on sanitation and access to cooking fuel.

In 2015-16, almost 52% lacked sanitation by the study’s yardstick; five years later, just over 30% were found deprived of it. Access to cooking fuel improved by nearly 15 percentage points, down from about 60% deprivation. Both fields saw big interventions mounted by the Centre in mission mode.

The Narendra Modi administration made it clear after assuming power that welfare outlays would not be reduced in favour of a market trickle-down. What took observers by surprise was the scale at which such programmes were launched, the publicity they were given and the outreach efforts made to mobilize action. The uptake of our Swachh Bharat Mission, which envisioned an India free of open defecation and drafted Mahatma Gandhi’s advice