As per NFHS-5 data, which of the following state(s) recorded less than 6% of the population as multidimensionally poor in 2019-20?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, Himachal Pradesh. NITI Aayog's National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023, which is the document that converts NFHS data into state MPI numbers, puts Himachal Pradesh's headcount ratio at 4.93 per cent in 2019-21, down from 7.59 per cent in 2015-16, with an intensity of deprivation of 40.22 per cent and an MPI value of 0.020. Uttar Pradesh is nowhere near the threshold at 22.93 per cent, having fallen from 37.68 per cent. Jammu and Kashmir is the reason this question needed a ruling: its headcount is 4.80 per cent, comfortably under 6, but NITI Aayog's own table prints it in the Union Territories block and not in the States block, because Jammu and Kashmir ceased to be a State when the Reorganisation Act took effect on 31 October 2019. The stem asks which state or states qualify. BPSC's provisional key read (d), More than one of the above, on the arithmetic alone; when it disposed of objections on 31 October 2025 it issued a final key of (b), recording that the question asks about state or states and makes no mention of Union Territories, and that Jammu and Kashmir was made a Union Territory in October 2019, so only Himachal Pradesh is correct. The final key governs, and this card argues it. One formulation to get right, because it is the standard error repeated across coaching material: Himachal Pradesh is not the only Indian state below 6 per cent. In the same table Kerala stands at 0.55 per cent, Goa at 0.84, Tamil Nadu at 2.20, Sikkim at 2.60, Punjab at 4.75, Mizoram at 5.30 and Telangana at 5.88, with Andhra Pradesh only just above at 6.06. The honest statement is that of the three options this paper offers, only Himachal Pradesh is a state below 6 per cent.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Below the line on the number and still not the answer, which is precisely why this question ended with a revised key. Jammu and Kashmir's headcount fell from 12.56 per cent in 2015-16 to 4.80 per cent in 2019-21 — a drop of 7.76 percentage points, among the steepest in the country — so on arithmetic alone it clears 6 per cent. But NITI Aayog's table classifies it under Union Territories, because the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act took effect on 31 October 2019, and the stem asks for a state. The Commission's final key turns on that single noun.  (c) Not close on any reading. Uttar Pradesh recorded 22.93 per cent of its population as multidimensionally poor in 2019-21, almost four times the 6 per cent threshold, though it had improved sharply from 37.68 per cent in 2015-16. What can pull a candidate towards it is a headline rather than a level: the same NITI report notes that Uttar Pradesh topped the country on numbers, with 3.43 crore people escaping multidimensional poverty in five years. A large fall in absolute numbers is not a low headcount ratio.  (d) This was BPSC's own provisional answer, and it is the most instructive wrong option on the paper. On the raw figures two of the three options do sit below 6 per cent — Himachal Pradesh at 4.93 and Jammu and Kashmir at 4.80. The final key rejected it on one word in the stem, 'state(s)': Jammu and Kashmir has been a Union Territory since 31 October 2019 and is tabulated as one, so it is not available to be counted. When an option's correctness rests on a constitutional category rather than on a number, reread the stem's noun before you commit.

Concept: The Multidimensional Poverty Index does not ask what a household earns. Built on the Alkire-Foster method developed at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, it asks in how many ways a household is simultaneously deprived, across three equally weighted dimensions — health and nutrition, education, and standard of living — resolved into twelve indicators in India's national version. Health carries Nutrition at one-sixth and Child and Adolescent Mortality and Maternal Health at one-twelfth each; Education carries Years of Schooling and School Attendance at one-sixth each; Standard of Living carries Cooking Fuel, Sanitation, Drinking Water, Housing, Electricity, Assets and Bank Account at one twenty-first each. A person counts as multidimensionally poor once their weighted deprivation score reaches 33.33 per cent. India's national MPI adds Maternal Health and Bank Account to the ten indicators of the global index, so Indian and global MPI figures are not interchangeable. Two numbers are then reported and must not be confused: the headcount ratio H, the share of people who are poor, which is what this question asks about; and the intensity A, the average share of indicators in which a poor person is deprived. Their product, H times A, is the MPI value itself. NITI Aayog's Progress Review 2023 applied this to 36 States and Union Territories and 707 districts, comparing NFHS-4 with NFHS-5 to show the national headcount falling from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent.

State PCS 2025 Q45 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q45 — Economy PYQ with Answer