{"id":16406,"date":"2026-11-15T09:21:05","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T09:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=16406"},"modified":"2026-11-15T09:21:05","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T09:21:05","slug":"india-pulled-500m-people-out-of-poverty-many-of-them-still-barely-survive-poverty-and-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=16406","title":{"rendered":"India pulled 500m people out of poverty. Many of them still barely survive | Poverty and Development"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>7 Minute, 14 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>


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Rajsamand and New Delhi, India \u2013<\/strong> Hema Prajapat, 25, says even \u201cthorns growing inside her stomach\u201d would not hurt as much as hunger does.<\/p>\n

By the end of each month, her kitchen shelves are empty; her husband, Hari Prajapat, sinks deeper into debt; and an increasing share of their food supplies is set aside for their nine-year-old son, Divyansh.<\/p>\n

But Hema\u2019s family is no longer poor \u2013 at least on paper.<\/p>\n

She spends 11,000 rupees ($117) a month on her household of three. That is about 49 percent more than the roughly 7,380 rupees ($78) monthly threshold for a family of that size, based on the World Bank\u2019s poverty line.<\/p>\n

India, the world\u2019s most populous country, no longer counts its poor. It has not published an official consumption-based poverty estimate in more than a decade. That leaves the World Bank to provide internationally comparable estimates, using newer consumption surveys and its own poverty thresholds.<\/p>\n

A recent World Bank report<\/a> says India lifted nearly 500 million people out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, with extreme poverty dropping from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent during the period.<\/p>\n

The only comparable poverty-reduction effort on this scale was achieved by China, which lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty over four decades.<\/p>\n

Several economists have said India\u2019s achievement is significant, and that the World Bank\u2019s mechanism for calculating these numbers is beyond reproach, even as they have argued that the planet\u2019s most populous nation still has a long way to go before it can claim to have defeated poverty.<\/p>\n

Other economists have questioned the World Bank\u2019s sweeping conclusions and India\u2019s unwillingness under Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government to carry out its own poverty estimates.<\/p>\n

But masked by that largely academic and political split is the lived reality of millions of Indians who have crossed the supposed poverty threshold yet lead a life marked by persistent deprivation, and a precarity that leaves families one shock away from losing everything that matters to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis poverty line, this bar, is very low. No person can live a dignified life [on this amount],\u201d Hema told Al Jazeera, sitting in a small garden where she moonlights as a caretaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid they even get out of their AC cars?\u201d she asked, taking a dig at the officials who prepared the report for the World Bank.<\/p>\n

\u2018Money now vanishes\u2019<\/h2>\n

India, home to 1.4 billion people, is one of the fastest-growing global economies \u2013 the fourth-largest by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), despite repeated recent shocks including the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.<\/p>\n

It is also one of the world\u2019s most unequal countries, with the top 1 percent of its population owning 40 percent of its wealth \u2013\u00a0 a concern highlighted in the World Bank report as well.<\/p>\n

Hema was 11 when she was married off to a man who belongs to a family of traditional clay-pot makers in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan state.<\/p>\n

When pot sales could no longer meet their financial needs, her husband, Hari, started a street food stall selling pani puri, a popular Indian snack. That did not last long because of\u00a0the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Hema started to look for work.<\/p>\n

For the past year, she has been cleaning houses and washing utensils in the neighbourhood for 5,000 rupees ($53) a month, but the deprivation did not end.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to buy every single thing from the market,\u201d she said. The family has no agricultural land.<\/p>\n

The World Bank pointed to rising female labour force participation as one of the factors behind India\u2019s improving poverty rates, although women\u2019s access to secure and adequately paid employment remains a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I started working, our home has seen some comfort, but the money is now vanishing faster, and we are even more in debt,\u201d Hema said, adding that she is unable to figure out the maths behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prices have multiplied in recent years, and whatever we earn falls short,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\"A
A girl stands at the door of a grocery shop at a slum in New Delhi [File: Anindito Mukherjee\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The World Bank also noted that the Indian government\u2019s provision of\u00a0free or subsidised foodgrains\u00a0to nearly 800 million citizens\u00a0every month under its national food-security programme has helped tackle extreme poverty.<\/p>\n

But a rising cost of living has meant that government subsidies and handouts are racing against growing economic pressures on families like Hema\u2019s. India\u2019s overall consumer prices rose by at least 51 percent between September 2016 and September 2025, according to the government\u2019s Consumer Price Index. Wage rises in this period have not kept pace.<\/p>\n

Some government schemes help, such as public schools for children or state-run hospitals that provide free or subsidised healthcare.<\/p>\n

But Hema says free healthcare does not inspire much confidence in\u00a0people. When her son Divyansh had a bad cold and\u00a0the\u00a0flu two months ago, she rushed him to a private hospital as waiting times at public hospitals are often longer, with crowded wards, overstretched doctors and limited resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was scared for him. His fever was getting worse,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Treatment at the private hospital cost Hema about 6,000 rupees ($64) \u2013 more than what she makes in a month. \u201cI do not want my son to get used to private hospitals or their drugs. I cannot take him to one every time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018One shock\u2019 away from poverty<\/h2>\n

Millions of Indian households that appear to be rising above the World Bank\u2019s poverty threshold live on the edge, desperately trying to avoid being pushed back.<\/p>\n

Santosh Mehrotra, a developmental economist in New Delhi, said the poverty threshold in India is too low. All it takes is \u201cone shock\u201d to be pushed back into it, he said. \u201cThat shock could be a pandemic, drought, flood, or even a wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hema\u2019s neighbour Sushila Salvi received one such shock.<\/p>\n

In December last year, Salvi, 31, realised she was \u201cfinally pregnant\u201d again \u2013 her second child after a gap of 14 years. Salvi did not trust government hospitals and wanted to get all her treatment at a private clinic.<\/p>\n

In some ways, she had prepared for it. Over the previous eight years, she learned makeup skills and opened a small, one-seater salon in Kankroli, a small town in Rajsamand. She had been saving for her 14-year-old daughter\u2019s higher education. The daughter currently goes to a government school.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I got pregnant, I could not rely on government hospitals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Maternal care cost her nearly 65,000 rupees ($695) and drained her savings. She had to pull her daughter out of extra tuition classes that cost her 600 rupees ($6) a month.<\/p>\n

Mehrotra, who previously worked with the government on rural economies and poverty, said the World Bank\u2019s poverty threshold is \u201calso problematic because it does not draw a distinction between the rural and the urban populations\u201d despite their different realities.<\/p>\n

Seema Kumar, 37, lives on the outskirts of New Delhi and spends 20,000 rupees ($214) on her family of three.<\/p>\n

She turns to loans when expenses spiral, such as during a festival or her 17-year-old son\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

But some shocks come unseen.<\/p>\n

As India celebrated Diwali, a festival of lights, last week, and people burst firecrackers, air quality in New Delhi \u2013 one of the world\u2019s most polluted cities \u2013 hit a record.<\/p>\n

The next morning, as dense and toxic smog hung over the city, all three members of Seema\u2019s family left for work. By evening, her son had developed a sore throat, everyone in the family had a runny nose, and Seema went to bed with a terrible headache.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could not buy a mask for my son, and they say I am not poor any more,\u201d Seema told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Back in Rajsamand, as Hema swept the garden in her neighbourhood, she called Hari, her husband, reminding him that their child was due for a routine medical checkup that day.<\/p>\n

Hari said he could not afford to refill petrol any more due to the increase in oil prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East. Hema offered to refill his motorcycle\u2019s tank to go to the nearest hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only hope is that my son makes something out of his life,\u201d said Hema. \u201cIf I do not work for a single day \u2013 let alone a month \u2013 we can go back to the days of extreme poverty and deprivation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Rajsamand and New Delhi, India \u2013 Hema Prajapat, 25, says even \u201cthorns growing inside her stomach\u201d would not hurt as much as hunger does. By the end of each month, her kitchen shelves are empty; her husband, Hari Prajapat, sinks deeper into debt; and an increasing share of their food supplies is set aside for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t