INDIA CAN REACH POVERTY REDUCTION TARGET

Despite widespread poverty in the country, India is on track to meet the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of poverty reduction by 2015, a UN report said today. "...although poverty remains widespread in India, progress has been substantial. In India, the poverty rate fell from 49 per cent in 1994 to 42 per cent in 2005 and to 33 per cent in 2010. If the current pace continues, India will meet the poverty reduction target by 2015," UN Secretary-General's Millennium Development Goals report released by UN Information Centre said here. The report said extreme poverty rates have been halved for Eastern Asia, South-Eastern Asia and Southern Asia, five years ahead of the deadline, though with the exception of India. "Of the 21 global targets linked to the eight goals, six of the most important have already been met or nearly so. Probably the most impressive of these is the 50 per cent reduction in the proportion of people living in extreme poverty globally," Lise Grande, UN Resident Coordinator said. The UN Millennium Summit in 2000 had agreed upon achieving eight goals with sub-targets covering poverty, hunger, health, gender equality, education and environmental indicators by 2015. The report found that South-Eastern Asia reached hunger reduction target ahead of 2015 deadline. However, Southern Asia is lagging behind. "Eastern Asia is on track to meet the hunger target. However, in Southern Asia, the proportion of undernourished people has fallen from 26.8 per cent to 17.6 per cent during the past two decades, which is insufficient to meet the MDG target," it said. In developing regions, the percentage of people living on USD 1.25 a day or less has fallen from 47 per cent in 1990 to 22 per cent in 2010, Grande said. "This means that 700 million fewer people are now living in conditions of extreme poverty than was the case twenty years ago. Extreme poverty rates have fallen in every region, with China leading the way," she said. On child nutrition, the report said number of underweight children in 2011 was the highest in Southern Asia among all regions with 31 per cent of children under age five, or 57 million children, underweight.