Congress on Sunday accused the BJP government of giving World Bank’s data a “spin”. The party termed the government’s statement that India has become the fourth ‘most equal’ country as a “staggeringly out-of-touch claim”.
An official release quoting World Bank data says inequality in India fell significantly between 2011-12 and 2022-23, making it the fourth most equal country globally.
During the same period, extreme poverty dropped sharply — from 16.2 per cent in 2011-12 to 2.3 per cent in 2022-23. The government attributed the reduction in inequality to various initiatives and schemes over the last decade.
The only countries with better Gini Index scores (a measure of equality) are the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus. India now ranks ahead of countries like China, the US, and the UK.
The Opposition party said as a lower middle-income country, the appropriate rate to measure poverty in India is that of $3.65/day and as per this measure, the poverty rate for India in 2022 is significantly higher at 28.1 per cent.
“No country that has a poverty rate of 28.1 per cent can make a justifiable claim to being one of the most equal societies in the world,” said Congress general secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh in a statement.
He said three months after the World Bank released its report, the Modi government’s “drumbeaters and cheerleaders” have begun “spinning” the data to make the “staggeringly out-of-touch” claim that India is among the world’s most equal societies.
He added that the age disparity in India is high, with the median earnings of the top 10 per cent being 13 times higher than the bottom 10 per cent in 2023-24. The World Bank’s report is “clear”, which as per him shows poverty remains high, and so does inequality in India.
“The good news that the Modi government is so desperately trying to wrangle out of this report is partly attributable to the limited availability and the uncertain quality of government data, as well as to the selection of benchmarks to measure poverty,” he said.
Recalling the party’s statement in April on the release of World Bank report, he said, “The lack of clarity and transparency over the prevalence of poverty in India is a result of this government’s confused and opaque policymaking.”
“Sharpening inequality is now firmly embedded in the nature of our economic growth and its trajectory fuelled by the government’s policies and the widening gap between the privileged few and the dispossessed many can no longer be denied,” he said.
