Watch: Is it True That the Modi Govt Has Lifted 24.8 Crore People Out of Poverty?

While the NITI Aayog has said in a new report that 24.8 crore people have been lifted out of multidimensional poverty in the nine years leading up to 2022-23, experts of the economy have raised doubts over this claim.

Economist Santosh Mehrotra has argued that the whole purpose of making the National Multidimensional Poverty Index the poverty indicator for India, while consumption expenditure surveys were not done for eight years from 2014 to 2022, is part of a political strategy. In this conversation with The Wire‘s founding editor M.K. Venu, he explains his stance.