Our Bureau
New Delhi
India and Pakistan’s journey are a tale of two contrasting paths taken by nations who were left on the banks of poverty after centuries of colonialism. The World Bank on Saturday, 7th June released data on India and Pakistan’s financial condition. They have majorly focused on the data of the past 15 years of both nations and the results show the different priorities that both South Asian nations have focused on.
For India, the World Bank has given the data from 2011-12 to 2022-23 while for Pakistan they have highlighted the data from 2017-18 to 2020-21. The Bank has given a comparative analysis of the poverty situation in both nations during these times.
The World Bank has changed the global income threshold from $2.15 per person, per day to $3 per person, per day to keep a check on the percentage of population living under extreme poverty line. So according to this number of people in India below the extreme poverty line went down. In the time period from 2011-12 to 2022-23 the percentage of people below extreme poverty line went from 27.1% to 5.3% of the total population of India.
According to the reports in the year 2011-12, India had around 344.47 million people below the extreme poverty line. In 2022-23, the number dropped seriously with 75.24 million people under the extreme poverty line. So, around 269 million people, which is more than the total population in Pakistan, came out of extreme poverty in India in 11 years period.
Where India has performed really well, the story of Pakistan is sadly very different. The extreme poverty figures show that in the 4-year span Pakistan’s total percentage of people below the line went from 4.9% to 16.5% of their total population. Along with that, the overall poverty headcount in Pakistan at $4.2 per person, per day, the figure has gone up from 39.8 per cent of the total population in 2017 to around 44.7 per cent in 2021.
India and Pakistan have both been in the news regarding their economic conditions recently. While India’s name surged high as they took over Japan becoming the fourth largest economy in the world, Pakistan was taking a bailout package from the International Monetary Funds. The nations have gone on completely different trajectories in the past few years with India surging high and Pakistan crumbling further down.
