India pulled 500m people out of poverty. Many of them still barely survive

A World Bank report estimates that nearly 500 million people in India moved out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, with extreme poverty falling from 27.1 per cent to 2.6 per cent. The scale of the change is significant, but official Indian poverty estimates have not been published for more than a decade, and many people above the poverty line still face hunger, debt and insecurity.

Hema Prajapat’s family lives on about 11,000 rupees a month, above the World Bank’s roughly 7,380-rupee poverty threshold for a family of three, yet often runs short of food and relies on debt. The report points to factors including increased female employment and government food support; critics question whether the poverty line reflects a dignified standard of living. India remains highly unequal, with the richest one per cent owning 40 per cent of its wealth.