BHUBANESWAR: With Odisha performing poorly in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) ranking of NITI Aayog, Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra on Monday advised all secretaries to understand the intricacies of multi-dimensional poverty index (MPI) and monitor developmental interventions for speedy attainment of the identified goals.
Addressing a consultative workshop on multi-dimensional poverty index in collaboration of NITI Aayog here, Mahapatra said the focus of SDG is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Therefore, multi-dimensional poverty measurement parameter is crucial for working towards the achievement of SDG-2030 agenda.
Development Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Jena said that the MPI reflects both the incidence and intensity of poverty.
It shows how many are poor in a given population and what is the level of their deprivation. The MPI index establishes deprivation profiles for households. The workshop was arranged to deliberate on different contours of MPI with input from NITI Aayog.
MPI experts from NITI Aayog Soumoya Guah said MPI reflects people’s experience of poverty in different forms and dimensions.
It also reflects the policy priorities regarding poverty eradication. MPI is calculated on the basis of 10 indicators arranged into three sectors namely health, education and standard of living.
Health includes indicators like nutrition and child mortality; education embraces years of schooling of a household member and school attendance up to the age of the completion of class eight; and, standard of living covers the indicators like cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, housing, electricity and assets.
Though Odisha slipped in the ranking from 15 to 19 and is placed among the bottom five states, the State scored well in some parameters which were not taken into account.
Even as Odisha witnessed sharpest decline of 24.6 percentage in poverty level between the years 2004-05 and 2011-12, 32.6 per cent of the population living below poverty line is not something to cheer for.
The workshop was held in three different sessions like introduction to basic concepts and calculation methodology, state and district wise performance indicators, data extraction and data structure.