India’s poverty level has fallen below five per cent and people of the country are becoming more prosperous both in the rural and urban areas, NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said on Sunday (February 26), according to the media reports. He signalled an improvement in the country’s economic landscape and cited the latest consumer expenditure survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). Notably, the report has been published after a gap of over a decade, according to which, the per capita monthly household expenditure increased more than the double in 2022-23 in comparison to 2011-12.
“The data indicates that poverty in India is now below five per cent,” the reports quoted Subrahmanyam as saying, who expressed confidence in the findings of the survey.
How was the survey done?
People were categorised into 20 different groups in the survey, which revealed the data that the average per capita monthly expenditure in the rural areas is Rs 3,773, and in the urban areas is Rs 6,459.
The CEO noted that poverty mainly is in the 0 to 5 per cent income bracket.
"If we take the poverty line and inflate it with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to today's rate, we see that the average consumption of the lowest fractional, the 0-5 per cent, is about the same. This means poverty in the country is there in the 0-5 per cent group only," the NITI Aayog CEO said.
Urban-rural consumption gap narrowing: NITI Aayog CEO
He highlighted the positive trends in the current times and said that the rural as well as urban areas have increased their consumption by 2.5 times which indicates progress in both places. Suggesting a positive move towards economic parity, he said that the gap of consumption between rural and urban areas is narrowing.
He said that there is a decline in the consumption of cereals and food items, suggesting a shift towards a more prosperous lifestyle among them.
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