'Coronavirus Outbreak In India Has Exposed Lack Of Social Welfare In World's Largest Democracy': Oxford Study

India made remarkable progress between the years of 2005 and 2016 in reducing multidimensional poverty, an Oxford Poverty and Humanity Development Initiative (OPHI) study, conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme showed.

The report titled 'Charting pathways out of multidimensional poverty: Achieving the SDGs,' mentions that 273 million Indians escaped multidimensional poverty between 2005 and 2016.

As per the study, nearly 55 per cent of the Indian population lived in multidimensional poverty in 2005. By 2016, this figure had slipped sharply to 27.9 per cent.

India's intensity of deprivation stood at 43.9 per cent, with 8.8 living under severe multidimensional poverty. The study also mentioned that less than 38 crore Indians lived under multidimensional poverty in 2018.

The pandemic, however, threatens to cause damage to years of progress made unless organised and localised ensure needs of millions who lost their livelihoods uprooted.

The coronavirus outbreak in India has brought to light the lack of social welfare in the world's largest democracy. However, the government's massive stimulus package and the MGNREGA scheme has provided slight relief to India's daily-wage economy.

The study found that global poverty could spike to over 1 billion due to the pandemic, with Asian countries like Pakistan and India, most vulnerable to it.

The study also called for the International Monetary Fund to extend its current moratorium on debt servicing payments, and for the World Bank to also follow suit, at least till the end of the year.

The cash transfers and distribution of food grains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana will somehow help in alleviating the plight of the poor, but they are not a substitute for a social protection scheme that India has been lacking for a year, the study found.

As India's large urban informal workforce continues to multiply as cities expand, affordable housing and health insurance are lagging behind, the study highlighted.

While the rural population has benefitted under schemes like the MGNREGA, PDS, PM-JAY and PM-KISAN, the urban poor, which in 2018 constituted 34 per cent of the total population, has been struggling.

Several studies have shown that the proportion of population vulnerable to going back to poverty is largely concentrated in India's cities.

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