Congress expresses concern over World Bank report on poverty in India

New Delhi: The Congress expressed concerns on Sunday over a recent World Bank report that said poverty and inequality remain concerningly high in India, and requested the Centre to take steps, including bringing in GST reforms and ending corporate favouritism.

Citing the World Bank’s poverty and equity brief for India in April 2025, Congress general secretary, communications, Jairam Ramesh said three months after its release, the Narendra Modi government’s “drumbeaters and cheerleaders have begun spinning the World Bank’s data to make the staggeringly out-of-touch claim that India is among the world’s most equal societies”.

He said in a statement issued on April 27, the Congress had highlighted some of the key concerns that the World Bank had raised in its report.

Our statement on the Government’s shockingly out-of-touch claim that India is one of the world’s most equal societies pic.twitter.com/heViWzM0NY

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 6, 2025

“These concerns continue to be relevant, and any attempt to engage with the report must grapple with them seriously,” the Congress leader said.

He said the World Bank report highlights that wage disparity is high in India, with the median earnings of the top 10 per cent being 13 times higher than the bottom 10 per cent in 2023-24.

“Moreover, ‘sampling and data limitations suggest that consumption inequality (as measured by government data) may be underestimated’.

"The World Bank had released its Poverty and Equity Brief for India in April 2025. Three months after its release, the Modi Government's drumbeaters and cheerleaders have begun spinning the World Bank's data to make the staggeringly out-of-touch claim that India is among the… pic.twitter.com/jgxjkIy6aq

— Congress (@INCIndia) July 6, 2025

“More updated data (adoption of purchasing power parity conversion factor from 2021 as compared to that of 2017) would result in a higher rate of extreme poverty,” Ramesh said in a statement, citing the report.

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He said the report also stated that changes in the questionnaire design, survey implementation and sampling in the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2022-23 “present challenges for making comparisons over time”.

“As a lower middle-income country, the appropriate rate to measure poverty in India is that of USD 3.65/day. By this measure, the poverty rate for India in 2022 is significantly higher at 28.1 per cent,” Ramesh said, citing the report.

“The report is therefore rather clear: poverty remains concerningly high, and so does inequality,” the former Union minister added.

He said the good news that the Centre is so desperately trying to wrangle out of this report is partly attributable to the limited availability and uncertain quality of government data as well as to the selection of benchmarks to measure poverty.

“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,” the Congress leader said.

He added that in the statement issued by his party in April, “we had also outlined several takeaways for Indian policymakers from the report. These also continue to remain relevant”.

Ramesh suggested that the significant variance between differing poverty lines shows that large sections of the population are only marginally above the international extreme poverty line.

“Social welfare systems such as MGNREGA and the National Food Security Act, 2013 cannot be abandoned but must be strengthened to ensure that they protect these segments from negative shocks,” he said.

Ramesh said the Congress’s long-standing demands for increasing wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), conducting the decadal population census (now scheduled to be carried out in 2027) and bringing 10 crore additional people within the ambit of the NFSA find new urgency in light of these numbers.

“The lack of clarity and transparency over the prevalence of poverty in India is a result of this government’s confused and opaque policymaking. Since the Rangarajan Committee Report submitted in 2014, the Union government has not set any updated poverty line for the country. The government must do so immediately,” the Rajya Sabha MP stressed.

Noting that data quality, consistency and integrity are of the highest priority, he said the government’s recent track record on this front, “best exemplified by the suppression of the Consumption Expenditure Survey 2017-18, is not inspiring”.

“In fact, blatant data doctoring and manipulation is part of the Modi government’s tool-kit when economic realities are contrary to its claims and boasts,” he alleged.

Ramesh further alleged that sharpening inequality is now firmly embedded in the nature of India’s economic growth and its trajectory, fuelled by the BJP-led Centre’s policies and the widening gap between the privileged few and the dispossessed many, can no longer be denied.

“There is a compelling need for tax reforms in GST to mitigate its regressive impacts, ending tax terrorism to stimulate private corporate investment, ending brazen corporate favouritism and providing income support for families and incentives for household savings,” the Congress leader asserted.

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