New survey finds just 20.8% of India is poor

A new survey based on income data has found that India has less poverty than estimated by the government's National Sample Survey (NSS).

According to the survey, "How India earns, spends and saves," about 214 million people, or 20.8 per cent of India's population, are poor.

In contrast, according to the two sets of poverty estimates provided by the NSS using consumption expenditure data, the country's poverty level is 27.5 per cent according to the 30-day data and 21.8 per cent on the basis of the 365-day data.

The latest survey has been carried out by Max New York Life and the NCAER using state-wise expenditure poverty lines (EPL) for 2004-05 as defined by the Planning Commission to calculate the poverty ratio based on the income data.

The incidence of income poverty in rural and urban areas, according to the study, is estimated to be 21.7 per cent and 18.7 per cent, respectively. The survey has found that around 22.3 per cent households control 51 per cent of India's total income. This group's per capita income is Rs 33,170 annually, about nine times the lowest income-level segment of 17.9 per households, whose annual per capita income is Rs 3,534.

The urban annual income level of Rs 95,827 is around 85 per cent higher than the rural annual income level of Rs 51,922, according to the survey.

Given that the expenses of urban households are substantially higher than rural households, an average urban household is estimated to be saving Rs 26,762 or nearly double that of a rural household, which saved Rs 11,613 on an average.

In Delhi, the richest state in the country, the annual average per capita income is Rs 29,137, compared with Rs 6,277 in the poorest state of the country, Bihar.

Labourers constitute over 62 per cent of poor households. In contrast, this group accounts for 26 per cent of non-poor households. While 21.7 per cent of non-poor households earn salaries, just about 4.4 per cent of poor households earn their living through salary or wages.

The survey, which was conducted with a sample size of of 63,016 households in 24 states, included 31,446 rural households and 31,570 urban households.