The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index developed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support covers which of the following? 1) Deprivation of education, health, assets and services at household level 2) Purchasing power parity at national level 3) Extent of budget deficit and GDP growth rate at national level Which of the statement given above is/are correct?

Only statement 1 is correct, so the answer is A. The MPI was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support. It uses the Alkire-Foster counting method and measures poverty at the household level through deprivations across three dimensions: health, education and living standards. Its ten indicators include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and assets.

Statement 2 is wrong because purchasing power parity is a currency-conversion tool for comparing national incomes. It is not part of the MPI's deprivation measure. Statement 3 is wrong because budget deficit and GDP growth are macroeconomic indicators. They do not capture the lived deprivations of individual households.

Core concept: multidimensional poverty, which goes beyond income-based poverty lines. For Mains GS-II and GS-I, this links to inclusive growth and to NITI Aayog's National MPI, released in 2021 with 12 indicators.

Trap: aspirants often pick option D because they associate development measures with PPP and GDP. The MPI is a household-level welfare index, not a national macroeconomic one.