(REOPEN MDS3)

Ansari said inspite of the gains of the last three decades, 29.8 per cent of the country's population or 354.6 million people were estimated to be living below the poverty line in 2009-10. On the other hand, the top 10 per cent of the income groups earned 33 per cent of the income. While official figures of unemployment might appear to be low, the real challenge was of ameliorating rampant under-employment and low productivity particularly in the informal sector of the economy where around 90 per cent of the workforce is employed. The national socio-economic parameters including those on illiteracy, disease, malnutrition, infant mortality, declining child sex ratio and homelessness were less than comforting. The 2011 census showed that 29 per cent of our population is still illiterate bestowing India with the dubious distinction of having maximum number of illiterates in the world. In UNDP's Human Development Report of 2011, India ranked 134 out of a total of 187 countries. This reflected our shortfalls in terms of a composite index, which included life expectancy, educational attainment and income, despite the growth rates in GDP in the past two decades, he said, adding improvement of quality of governance and delivery was a pre-requisite in overcoming all these shortfalls.