Bharat Shining: Fall in rural poverty needs to be showcased

Given that the current year is likely to be a much better agriculture year than the previous one, the government would do well to showcase the dramatic fall in rural poverty over the past few years. Indeed, the NSS data that has just been put out shows that, while overall poverty levels in India are down to 20.8-22.9%—depending on which method you use to calculate poverty—in FY12 as compared to 29.8% in FY10, the really dramatic change is that seen in rural India. And, as in the case of overall poverty levels, most of the change is driven by economic growth.

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