Poverty levels below 5%, claims NITI Aayog chief
The HinduLess than 5% of Indians are now expected to be below the poverty line, and extreme destitution has almost gone away, a top government official asserted on February 25, citing the findings of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey for 2022-23. Subrahmanyam, the chief executive officer of the Centre’s think tank Niti Aayog, averred that growth is “broad-based” with rural Indians’ incomes and spends rising faster than their urban peers. Poverty math Citing the Monthly Per Capita Expenditure averages across fractile classes in 2022-23, Mr. Subrahmanyam noted that ₹1,373 was the average consumption level for the bottom 5% of rural households, while it was ₹1,782 for the next 5% of households. “I am convinced poverty in India is certainly in the low single digits, and below 5% is what this data shows, if you add the imputed value of food transfers and subsidies received by households under schemes like the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana or subsidised gas cylinders,” Mr. Subrahmanyam underlined. “The big picture is, there is a sharp rise in urban and rural consumption by over 2.5 times from 2011-12 levels in current prices, and the big story is that India’s growth is not restricted to a few, but is very broad-based,” Mr. Subrahmanyam said.