BHUBANESWAR: Despite persistent efforts by the government towards economic upliftment of the people, Odisha has been ranked among the nine poorest states in the country by a global study released recently.
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2022 prepared by comparing the development in several sectors and parameters that are inter-linked in the past five years revealed that nine states including Odisha continued to remain poor in the country.
As per the report released by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and UNDP, of the 10 poorest states in 2015-16, except West Bengal, the rest nine - Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Rajasthan remained the poorest in 2019-21.
The study stated among poor people, deprivations in cooking fuel and housing were the most common, followed by nutrition and sanitation. “Deprivations in nutrition contribute by far the most to MPI value, nearly as much as cooking fuel, housing and sanitation combined. Poverty is significantly more prevalent among female-headed households than among male-headed households,” it said.
The report said, Bihar, the poorest state in 2015-16, saw the fastest reduction in MPI value in absolute terms.