NEW DELHI: The global financial crisis may keep India from achieving its goal of eradicating hunger by 2015 and other Millennium Development Goals, says a paper by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

“As the full implications of the global financial crisis unfold, questions are being raised about its impact on India’s human development and achievement of MDGs,” UNDP India Senior Assistant Country Director Seeta Prabhu said.

India is doing good by the government’s definition of poverty, but not as per the World Bank’s estimates, Prabhu said in a paper titled ‘Global Financial Crisis: Impact on India’s Poor’.

“If the national poverty line is used as the definition, the country is generally considered to be well on track to reduce the headcount ratio of poverty, but not if the World Bank’s (WB) estimates of proportion of population below the newly defined extreme poverty line of $1.25 per day is considered,” she said in her paper.

Besides, she said, irrespective of the poverty estimate one uses, there is a distinct possibility that poverty levels may be higher than expected in the next couple of years till the economy resumes a faster growth path.

“Higher food prices would aggravate the situation and push back further the possibility of India reaching the target in Goal-I which aims at hunger eradication by 2015,” she said. In respect to Goal II the objective of achieving universal primary enrollment is widely recognised as being attainable with some effort. However, other targets of ensuring progress such as primary school completion rates and adult literacy rates seem more challenging, Prabhu said.

As far as health related Goals IV and V are concerned, the situation is not promising as the health outcomes of women and children have deteriorated even during the period of rapid economic progress, the report said.

“To expect an improvement in health outcomes when the economic situation of many of the poor households is deteriorating ... is unrealistic,” she said, adding that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could provide some cushion in India’s rural areas.