NEW DELHI – Since its Independence, the issue of poverty within India has remained a prevalent concern. As of 2010, more than 37 percent of India’s population of 1.35 billion still lives below the poverty line, reports Economy Watch. More than 22 percent of the entire rural population and 15 percent of the urban population of India exists in this difficult and financial dilemma. In 2009-2010, the per capita daily consumption in rural areas was 22.42 as compared to 28.65 in urban areas.
According to government survey released for 2011-12 on household consumer expenditure, “The poorest 10 percent of India’s rural population had an average monthly per capita expenditure of 503. 49 per month,” as reported in The Economic Times.
In rural India, half of the population belonged to the household sector, and nearly 40 percent of the rural population had monthly per capita expenditure below 922. Their urban counterparts are slightly better with daily per capita expenditure of 23.40.
As per the National Sample Survey Organization’s (NSSO) for the period of July 2011 to June 2012, 10 percent of the urban population had an average monthly per capita expenditure of Rs 702.26. The main aim of the survey was to measure the living standard of the people in the country.
The average monthly per capita expenditure of the poorest 10 percent in urban areas was 702.26. It means that the bottom 10 percent people in urban areas live on 23.40 per day. The top 10 percent of the urban population had an average monthly per capita expenditure of 7,651.68, about 10.9 times that of the bottom 10 percent. In urban areas of India, half of the population was living with monthly per capita expenditure below 1,759. About 70 percent of the population had monthly per capita expenditure above Rs 1,295 and nearly 30 percent had above 2464.
In urban areas, 70 percent of the population live on a daily expenditure of about 43.16. As in rural areas, half of the population was living on a per capita daily expenditure of 33, the survey said.
The provisional results of the National Survey Sample are based on sample of 59,070 households in 7,391 villages and 41,602 households in 5,223 urban blocks.
“These indicators are amongst the most important measures of the level of living of the respective domains of the population and are crucial inputs for estimation of prevalence of poverty by the Planning Commission,” the ministry of statistics and program implementation, Shri Shrikanta Kumar Jena said in a statement.
