Poverty Status Of India Remain Mystery
- By From the Editor Desk
- 17 Apr 2024
- 79
Former National President of Congress Rahul Gandhi has given a formula to 'eradicate poverty'. According to him, if Congress government is formed at the Centre, then Rs 1 lakh will be deposited annually in the bank account of a woman from every poor family. That poor family could be a farmer, laborer or anyone, the woman of that family will be given Rs 8500 per month. This financial assistance will continue until the family comes out of the poverty line. Has Congress studied the economics of such a plan? The most important question is the number of poor. In fact, neither the Congress knows the number of such poor people in the country nor the government wants to share this data.
Even the definition of poverty line is yet to fixed. There are also contradictions regarding the status of poverty in the country. Rahul Gandhi has once again reiterated the reality of economic inequality. The 22 richest Indians in the country have as much wealth as 70 crore people. According to Rahul Gandhi, Modi government has waived off Rs 16 lakh crore of billionaires. This is the amount that only 25-30 rich people of the country could have given to the laborers through MNREGA for 24 years.
Rahul considers this election to be a fight between the poor of the country and 22-25 billionaires. This is an analysis of leftist thinking. If billionaires have immense economic resources, then their companies provide employment to lakhs of people and also pay taxes worth crores of rupees. However, Rahul Gandhi claims that Congress wants to eradicate extreme poverty from the country.
'Through our guarantee, we want to end poverty in one stroke' Rahul Gandhi's grandmother and the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had also given the slogan of 'Eliminate Poverty' in 1971 and won the elections with a huge majority. 'Poverty' remained a basic agenda in the subsequent Congress governments too, but there came a time when even the 'Planning Commission' (now NITI Aayog) believed that about 30 crore Indians were doomed to live below the poverty line.
Committees were formed, formulas were decided, but the correct data could not be presented to the country. Since now Prime Minister Modi is repeatedly repeating on public platforms that his government has brought 25 crore people out of 'poverty'.
That means even the Prime Minister accepts that there are 25 crore poor people in the country who have been rescued from that line. This statement of Prime Minister Modi is in front of the country, however, no point wise and area wise figures have been placed before the country. During this period, RSS Sarkaryavah (General Secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale had made public an economic assessment.
According to him, there are more than 23 crore Indians in the country who are unable to earn even Rs 375 per day. They are also below poverty line population. The question is, how many people are poor in the country, who need to be rescued by providing financial help?
Prime Minister Modi is distributing 'free grains' to more than 81 crore people in the country. Those who need 5 kg of food grains every month and this scheme will run for 5 more years, then such people are not poor, then in which category will they be placed?
There are many freebie schemes and cash is also being distributed. It seems as if 90 percent of India is poor. Modi himself should order the concerned department of the government to clarify the definition of poverty.