Cong flags ‘high’ poverty rate, pay disparity after World Bank report

The Congress on Sunday raised a ‘red flag’ while calling for immediate measures after the World Bank, in its latest report, found poverty rate “significantly high” in India.

Citing the report, the Congress said updated data – with the adoption of purchasing power parity conversion factor from 2021 as compared to that of 2017 — would result in a higher rate of extreme poverty.

“As a lower middle-income country, the appropriate rate to measure poverty in India is that of $3.65 per day. By this measure, the poverty rate for India in 2022 was significantly higher at 28.1 percent,” said the party’s senior leader Jairam Ramesh in a statement. He further noted that wage disparity in India remained high, with the median earnings of the top 10 percent being 13 times higher than the bottom 10 percent in 2023-24.

Stating that significant variance between differing poverty lines showed that large sections of the population were only marginally above the international extreme poverty line, the party urged the government to initiate measures to lift people from poverty.

“Social welfare systems such as MGNREGA and the National Food Security Act-2013 cannot be abandoned, but should instead be strengthened to ensure that they protect these segments from negative shocks,” Ramesh said.

He reiterated the demand to increase MGNREGA wages and conduct the decadal population census (due in 2021). He also urged the government to include 10 crore additional persons in the ambit of the NFSA.

He added that there was a “compelling” need for tax reforms in the GST to mitigate its “regressive” impacts.

Citing confused and opaque policymaking, he alleged that the government lacked clarity and was not transparent enough about the prevalence of poverty in India. “Since the Rangarajan Committee Report submitted in 2014, the Union Government has not set any updated poverty line for the country. The government must do so immediately,” he said.

Accusing the government of suppressing the Consumption Expenditure Survey 2017-18, the Congress leader said: “Blatant data doctoring and manipulation is part of the Modi government’s tool-kit when economic realities are contrary to its claims.”

India