Poverty Can’t Be Eliminated in India by 2015: Index

A new poverty index, which is to be released next week in Delhi, South Asian nations including India will not be able to eradicate poverty and ensure minimum education for all by 2015, reported Indian Express.

According to the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) 2009, South Asia will get 80 points on the index by 2015, 10 points higher than the present value of 70.

In the index, India has 68 points, showing a meagre increase of four points since 2004, said report.

As per global NGO Social Watch’s indext over 130 countries, a score of 100 points defines the well being of citizens based on children getting education till the primary level, the child mortality rate and the percentage of births attended by skilled labourers. The BCI, however, does not use income as an indicator.

“The index shows that despite our (India’s) economic growth, we are still way behind on providing basic amenities to people,” Amitabh Jha, of Social Watch-India, a conglomeration of civil society groups in India, was quoted as saying.

The index, however, said that South Asia, a region with the worst BCI showing in 2004, has been making fast progress, but the situation is still ‘extremely critical’, said report.

Since 2004, the report said, one-third of the countries failed to raise their BCI value by more than one per cent and only one out of six countries showed significant progress.

“Most of the countries in the world are very far from achieving the social objectives committed to for 2015,” Roberto Bissio, coordinator of the Social Watch secretariat, was quoted as saying.

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