Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Apr 17: Arun Jaitley, India’s finance minister, said on Monday that the number of people who live in poverty would drop to below 15 percent in the next three years and to a negligible level in the 10 years after that.

He pointed out that the fast economic growth and rapid urbanisation would be capable to bring down the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2021 and end it completely by the next decade.

World Bank’s census report in 2011, declared that 21 percent of India's 1.3 billion people lived on less than $1.90 a day. The people whose daily income is less than 33 rupees a day in cities and 27 rupees a day in villages fall under the category of poor, but is it really possible to survive with this amount in a country where every food item is available at sky-high price?

The rural welfare programmes have really helped the people in rural India. These efforts resulted in decrease in poverty in rural India at faster pace than their urban counterparts, but in spite of all the attempts, overall number of poor in India is increasing and becoming a hurdle.

Arun Jaitley stated in his Facebook post: “Urbanisation will increase, the size of the middle-class will grow and the economy will expand manifolds. These will add to the number of jobs and as the experience of the past three decades has shown in the liberalised economy, every section of citizens will benefit."

Jaitley said economic problems could be addressed as India remained the world's fastest growing major economy while adding that the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and terror continues to remain the biggest challenge before India. "It relates to our sovereignty, integrity and security."

But Congress has taken the issue with such assertions; in particular, pointing to leaked government data that showed unemployment rose to its highest level in at least 45 years in 2017/18. The Niti Ayog in its defence, claimed it was a draft copy and it was not right to publish incomplete report.