As per a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), India is steadily moving towards uplifting around 2.5 crore households out of poverty by 2030. The report said that India will reduce the share of households below the poverty line from present 15 per cent to 5 per cent by the same time.
The WEF report further noted that the upper-middle income and high-income segments will grow from being one in four households today to one in two households by 2030. These achievements would, however, be backed by economic expansion, increase in internet access and a favourable demographic dividend, according to the report.
The report titled ‘Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Consumer Market India’ which released at the beginning of this year, had predictions that India will become the third-largest consumer market behind only the US and China and consumer spending in India is expected to grow from $1.5 trillion at present to nearly $6 trillion by 2030.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has also said recently that the fast economic growth and rapid urbanisation would slash the number of people in extreme poverty by 2021 and end it completely in the decade after that.
“Urbanisation will increase, the size of the middle-class will grow and the economy will expand manifolds,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
“These will add to the number of jobs, and as the experience of the past three decades has shown in the liberalised economy, every section of citizens will benefit.” Economic growth in recent years had generated enough revenue for states to work more on poverty alleviation, job creation and improving healthcare and education, he said.
Moreover, James Crabtree, well-known author and journalist, whose book ‘The Billionaire Raj’ was released last year, had written a column in the Nikkei Asian Review titled ‘India’s post-poverty challenge’. In the article, he discussed India’s remarkable progress in curbing poverty and the road ahead.
Crabtree started with a chart published recently with actual data from the World Bank, IMF, World Population prospects by the UN and other socio-economic indicator tools developed by research foundations.
The chart shows India’s progress in bringing poverty down over the last few years. From a significantly high 125 million people in 2016 to less than 75 million in 2018. Taking the applied parameters and projected trends into account, the chart forecasts that India’s poverty rate will continue to fall drastically. By the year 2022, it is expected to come under 20 million and eventually disappearing in a few more years.
A decline in poverty has also been noted by Brookings Report 2018 which said that India is sliding down the global poverty ranking and is no longer home to the world’s most poor.
For poverty, the world bank data use the standard income of fewer than 1.90 dollars a day as the parameter. It was accepted as the minimum amount in most of the poor countries for the basic requirement of food, clothing and shelter.
