Economic growth to end extreme poverty in India by 2021: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who heads the BJP's publicity department in the election, said the number of people who live in poverty would drop to below 15% in the next three years

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday 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.

More than 21 per cent of India's 1.3 billion people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2011, when the last census was taken, according to the World Bank.

The economy is a major issue in a staggered general election that began on Thursday and will end on May 19, with the main opposition Congress party rejecting a rosy picture Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata