By IANS,
New Delhi : The number of low income households in India is falling, parliament was informed Thursday.
Minister of State for Planning V. Narayanasamy said this emerged from a book published by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) called “How India Earns, Spends and Saves”.
He said the study revealed that the number of low income households (those earning under Rs.45,000 per annum) is estimated to have slid from 84 million in 1985-86 to 65 million in 2001-02 and to 41 million by the end of the decade.
At the same time, the number of middle income households (earning Rs.45,000 to Rs.180,000 per annum) is estimated to have increased from 43 million to 141 million.
The high income households (earning over Rs.180,000 per annum and more) are projected to have risen from 1.4 million to 13.8 million and are expected to go up to 47 million.
This indicates “that the monthly per capita consumption expenditure in real terms has gradually increased for each percentile group of the population”, the minister said.
“This can be attributed to effective policy interventions of the government through implementation of various development programmes,” he said.