Inclusive growth

Story hook

In March 2024, NITI Aayog released its National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) update: India had lifted 24.82 crore people out of multidimensional poverty between 2013-14 and 2022-23. The headline number flooded political WhatsApp groups within minutes. The MPI headcount ratio had fallen from 29.17% to 11.28% — a 17.9 percentage-point collapse in nine years.

But on the same day, a quieter report from the World Inequality Lab in Paris — co-authored by Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel — estimated that the top 1% of Indians now own 40.1% of total wealth and earn 22.6% of national income — the highest concentration since the 1920s. By their measure, inequality in India today exceeds the British colonial era.

Both reports used the same underlying surveys (PLFS, NSS, NFHS) and the same population. Both were rigorously methodologically defensible. Yet they told stories that, on first reading, contradict each other. One India is rapidly escaping poverty. Another India is becoming spectacularly unequal. This is the paradox of inclusive growth: growth that lifts the bottom does not automatically narrow the gap to the top. UPSC examiners love this paradox because it forces a candidate to engage with both numbers honestly.

Why this matters for UPSC

Inclusive growth is a flagship Mains topic — at least one 15-mark question every two years. The Prelims angle is thinner but still present (definitions, government schemes, indices). Interview boards probe it through "what does growth mean to you?" or "is India growing inequitably?" questions. The frame underpins every welfare scheme (MGNREGA, PMJAY, PM-Kisan), every Five-Year Plan since the 11th, and the entire Economic Survey 2018-19 chapter on Wealth Creation.

The concept also connects directly to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities), Goal 1 (No Poverty). UPSC routinely cross- links SDG indicators with Indian growth narrative.