A quiet revolution is lifting the poor - Business Standard
· India · Business Standard
India's poor have seen a sustained, multi-decade rise in living standards driven by rural employment schemes, expanding bank access, and welfare delivery through direct benefit transfers. The MGNREGA programme has guaranteed 100 days of work per rural household each year, while Jan Dhan accounts have brought hundreds of millions into the formal banking system. PDS digitisation and Aadhaar-linked payments have cut leakage in food and fuel subsidies, delivering more of the entitlement to the intended recipient. Private consumption among the bottom deciles has grown faster than the national average, narrowing the rural-urban gap on several indicators. The article frames this as a structural shift rather than a cyclical uptick, though it stops short of naming a single trigger year or policy inflection point.
Why it matters
Roughly 250 million Indians lifted out of multidimensional poverty over the past decade represent the largest expansion of the domestic consumer base in the country's history, reshaping demand for FMCG, two-wheelers, smartphones, and rural banking products.
Read the original report — Business Standard
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