Rediff

New Delhi, Mar 11: A study conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation has revealed that one out of five persons in rural India does not even have the capacity to spend even 12 rupees a day.

"The report says that per capita consumption expenditure of 18.7 per cent of the rural population and 4.7 per cent of the urban population in the country is less than Rupees 12 per day. It implies that 16.3 crore people in the country spend less than Rs 12 per day representing 14.7 of the total population," Minister for Rural Development Reghuvansh Prasad informed the Lok Sabha on Monday.

The Ministry of Rural development has been implementing the poverty alleviation programmes to provide wage and self employment programmes with the objective of generating incremental income of the rural households.

The government is introducing from April National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is primarily a wage employment scheme for unskilled manual work.

The Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana is a self employment programme for rural people to provide assistance in the form of subsidy and credit to take up economic activities, which could generate income sustainable basis.