Poverty Below 5%: Report

A new report reveals that poverty in India has fallen below 5%, driven by improvements in rural infrastructure and income. The urban-rural income gap has also significantly narrowed.

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"ENHANCED PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE is scripting a new story in rural mobility. One of the reasons for the increasingly shrinking horizontal income gap between rural and urban and the vertical income gap within rural income classes," said the SBI Research report.

Additionally, the difference between rural and urban MPCEs is now at 69.7%, a rapid decline from 88.2% in 2009-10, mostly due to the initiatives the government has taken in terms of DBT transfers, building rural infrastructure, augmenting farmer's income, improving the rural livelihood significantly, it added.

On the inflation front, the SBI report said that based on the HCES data and using revised weights in place of existing ones in the CPI index, retail inflation in November would have come in at 5% as against 5.5%. In April-November, CPI inflation would have averaged 4.6% on the revised weights as compared to 4.9% currently.

The HCES 2023-24 data showed that urban-rural gap in MPCE has declined to 70% in 2023-24 from 84% in 2011-12. In 2022-23, the gap was 71%.