By Our Reporter
Poverty alleviation has been the major slogan of the government since the Panchayat days. The governments formed after the political changes of 1990 and 2006 have also been giving continuity to poverty alleviation in their programmes. Still, about 21 per cent (6 million) of Nepali people are found living below the poverty line.
According to the Nepali Living Standards Survey IV 2022-23 made public on Monday, 20.27 per cent of the population in Nepal is living below the poverty line, and the majority of them are in rural areas. While in rural areas, the prevalence of poverty is 24.66 per cent, it is 18.34 per cent in urban areas.
An individual in Nepal is classified as poor if their annual per capita total consumption expenditure is less than Rs. 72,908.
The National Statistics Office conducted the NLSS survey by spending a year with the technical support of the World Bank.
Vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission Dr. Min Bahadur Shrestha made public the summary of the reports during a function.
It was the first living standards survey conducted in Nepal after the restructuring of the administrative and political boundaries since the promulgation of the constitution in 2015.
The survey contains information on a wide range of topics related to household welfare from a representative sample of 9,600 households from all 77 districts, except for Manang.
According to the survey, the poverty rates are higher than the national rate in four provinces— Madhes, Lumbini, Karnai and Sudurpashchim with the highest poverty rate in Sudurpashchim at 34.16 per cent, followed by Karnali at 26.69 per cent, Lumbini at 24.35 per cent and Madhes at 22.53 per cent.
However, the rate of poverty in Gandaki, Bagmati and Koshi Province is lower than the national rate at 11.88 per cent, 12.59 per cent and 17.19 per cent, respectively.
According to the report, the rural domains have higher poverty rates than urban areas in each province, except for Lumbini and Gandaki.
The average annual per capita consumption expenditure has increased to Rs. 126,172 in 2023 from Rs. 75,902 12 years ago. The share of non-food spending has increased from an average of 38 per cent to 47 per cent over the same period.
The report found that the average annual nominal per capita expenditures in the Kathmandu Valley are the highest at Rs. 263,318 in 2022/23 prices.
Gandaki Urban has the second highest expenditure at Rs. 176,542 per year, which is 67 per cent of that in the Kathmandu Valley.
The lowest average annual nominal per capita expenditures are in Madhes rural and Sudurpashchim rural at Rs. 71,828 and Rs. 72,861 per person per year respectively.
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