India’s latest poverty estimates, drawn from National Sample Survey Office consumption data analysed over a twelve-year period, show that extreme poverty has fallen to historic lows, with Muslims recording a 1.5% incidence against 2.3% among Hindus, while Christians and Buddhists register moderately higher proportions, and Sikhs and Jains show none.
These findings come from a new paper authored by Columbia University professor and Sixteenth Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya and Vishal More, founder of the New Delhi-based research and consulting firm Intelink Advisors, and published in the Economic & Political Weekly, according to The Indian Express report.
The assessment, based on unit-level consumption data for 2011-12, 2022-23 and 2023-24, charts a sharp and broad-based decline in poverty across communities and regions, and it attributes these changes to sustained improvements in household consumption measured against the Tendulkar poverty line, which was updated for each survey year and applied separately for rural and urban populations in every state and Union Territory.
The authors estimate that the national poverty rate has dropped from 21.9% in 2011-12 to 2.3% in 2023-24, and this shift captures gains recorded across major social categories such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Forward Castes, all of which show significant reductions in extreme deprivation.
The decline is portrayed as sharper in rural India, where poverty levels had been considerably higher at the baseline, and the figures indicate a fall of 22.5 percentage points over twelve years, whereas the corresponding reduction in urban areas stands at 12.6 percentage points, suggesting that rural improvements have outpaced urban gains even as national levels converge towards minimal incidence.
The paper notes that even among Scheduled Tribes, who have historically remained at the margins of growth and welfare outreach, extreme poverty has declined to 8.7% in 2023-24, signalling the spread of consumption-driven improvements among groups traditionally associated with deeper deprivation.
The religious comparison shows that differences between Hindus and Muslims have nearly disappeared, with rural areas recording Muslim poverty at 1.6% compared to 2.8% among Hindus, while urban levels have converged to 1.2% and 1% respectively, marking a substantial shift from the far higher incidence observed in 2011-12.