THE CLAIM OF REDUCTION OF POVERTY IN INDIA IS A CRUEL JOKE

THE CLAIM OF REDUCTION OF POVERTY IN INDIA IS A CRUEL JOKE

29-JULY-ENG 13

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA------------------------------The World Bank has released a new report based on the 2022-23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey of India, in which it has declared that India has almost eliminated extreme poverty and now only 2.3 percent of the population is living below the extreme poverty line. The report claims that between 2011-12 and 2022-23, 171 million people have been lifted above the extreme poverty line of $2.15 per day. This claim is a blatant lie and has nothing to do with the lived reality of millions of people in India.

In the last 11 years, the Modi government has given one big shock after another to the livelihood of the people in India. These include demonetisation in 2016, the introduction of GST in 2017, a completely unplanned and stringent lockdown in 2020, the three farm laws proposed in 2020 and the new labour codes in 2019 and 2020. Spending on welfare schemes like MNREGA has stagnated. The rapid rise in privatisation and contractualisation has not only reduced government jobs but has also multiplied the vacancies in the jobs that remain. The availability of bank credit for agriculture and small businesses has reduced, while big businesses have benefited immensely.

When Indians are grappling with an unprecedented economic crisis, the government has worked extra hard to fudge data and grab headlines. In 2019, in an unprecedented move, the government refused to release the Household Consumption Survey data because it showed a sharp rise in poverty. It then prepared a Multidimensional Poverty Index using select indicators to claim that there has been a sharp decline in poverty. Simultaneously, the National Sample Survey Office was asked to revise its methodology of consumption surveys in such a way that it yields higher estimates of consumption and can be used to claim a decline in poverty. It then abandoned the well-established methodology of conducting consumption surveys and used a new methodology in which each sample household was surveyed three times to collect data on different items of consumption. This resulted in the consumption of a greater number of items being reported from each household, thereby inflating the overall estimate of consumption expenditure.

The World Bank report completely ignores the fact that these two surveys of 2011-12 and 2022-23 used very different methodologies and their estimates are not comparable. But now poverty reduction is being claimed by comparing the estimates of these two surveys. It only mentions that “inequality may be underestimated due to limitations of the data.” The report makes no mention of the fact that changes in methodology were such that they would underestimate higher levels of consumption expenditure and thus poverty.

Along with the revised consumption survey, a new version of the employment-unemployment survey called the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has also been prepared, which considers rural women who engage in marginal activities like animal husbandry due to economic distress as employed. If a woman rears and rears a goat or cow at home in the absence of any more remunerative employment opportunity, the PLFS considers that woman as employed. Unpaid women workers in household enterprises are also considered employed. This kind of ‘self-employment’ among rural women is what is behind the World Bank’s assessment that “employment rates are rising, especially among women.” On the other hand, the most precarious forms of employment — construction workers who walk on foot, food-delivery workers who cycle for hours in the heat of summer or freezing cold, and Uber drivers who drive cars for days without sleep — are the only jobs available to the vast majority of urban workers.

India’s statistical system, once the pride of the nation, has been destroyed by the Modi government. Instead of using legitimate statistical methods to effectively and accurately capture the socio-economic conditions in the country, it has been reduced to producing fake figures to further the government’s propaganda and hide the government’s indifference to the deepening economic crisis in the country. People facing a very different reality will never relate to this statistical lie. We must highlight the gap between facts and this statistical fiction and unite people based on their experiences against this anti-people government.