A Deprivation Based Assessment of Poverty in the Hill Districts of Manipur

Abstract

Even though India has made a significant progress in reducing poverty, the hill districts of Manipur, which are home to Scheduled Tribes, continue to experience social marginalization. Regional differences remain poorly documented, despite the national multidimensional poverty rate decreasing from 24.85% to 14.96% between 2015 and 2021. Using the Alkire-Foster dual-cutoff methodology, this study examines deprivations across health, education, and living standards dimensions to evaluate the scale, composition, and determinants of multidimensional poverty and inequality in Manipur’s hill districts. Using microdata from the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–2021) in 5 hill districts of Manipur, we compute multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) that include twelve weighted indicators. The study finds that hill districts have MPI values that are much higher than the state average of 0.116, ranging from 0.098 to 0.267. The headcount ratio, intensity, and MPI value stand at 0.164, 0.428, and 0.070, respectively. Sanitation has the highest contribution (47.3%), followed by cooking fuel (41.8%) and nutrition (34.6%). Poverty status is significantly predicted by ethnicity, remoteness, and agricultural dependency. The results show that tribal hill areas are very poor in many respects and exhibit unique patterns of deprivation. This calls for specific governmental actions to improve sanitation, increase access to renewable energy, and strengthen nutrition security programs.