CB Bureau‘Extremely poor’ in India will be lesser by 188 million and
poverty rate will be reduced from current 51 per cent to 24 per cent in 2015,
says United Nations report on the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for 2010.
However, he report also warns that the
progress in the rest of South Asia is not sufficient to halve the level of
poverty by that target date.
Worldwide, major reductions in poverty continue
to be recorded in East and South-East Asia, where the MDG target to halve
extreme poverty has already been met, while most of South Asia is in danger of
missing it.
The report indicates that progress
against hunger has been impacted more severely by economic troubles. The
ability of the poor to feed their families was hit by skyrocketing prices in
2008, and falling incomes in 2009. It says that in South Asia, the prevalence
of hunger increased from 20 to 21 per cent between 2000-2002 and 2005-2007.
‘Though the report is optimistic of meeting
the MDGs, it cannot be achieved unless accompanied by a reversal of the current
policies’, said, Brinda Karat, member of parliament, while releasing the report’. She expressed
the hope that the Centre would look at the report with the seriousness it
deserved.
Food security was crucial for achieving the
goals, she said calling for urgently putting into effect legislation on food
security. ‘Official statistics on the number of the poor in the country seemed
incorrect, as all other indicators were showing a negative trend’, she said.