India’s per capita income doubled to Rs1,72,000 under Modi govt: report
10 Apr 2023
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India’s per capita income grew at an average 5.6 per cent since Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government assumed power in 2014, nearly doubling it from Rs86,647 in 2014-15 to Rs1,72,000, says a report.
As per the World Development Indicator database, the average growth of India’s per-capita income in real term for the period from 2014 to 2019 was 5.6 per cent per annum, the report cited former director of the premier economic research institute NIPFP, Pinaki Chakraborty, as saying.
This indicates that there has been a consistent rise in per capita income. Although the Covid pandemic impacted the economy badly during the 2019-21 period, there has been a significant economic recovery post Covid.
He added that the growth is significant and there are noticed improvements in outcome related to health, education, and economic and social mobility.
According to Chakraborty, sustaining per-capita income growth at 5 to 6 per cent per annum with appropriate redistributive policies will help sustain this momentum.
However, as economist Jayati Ghosh said, when we look at the GDP at current prices, taking into account the rate of inflation, the increase is much less than the per capita income in nominal terms.
Also, according to the JNU professor, the majority of the upside has accrued to the top 10 per cent of the population.
However, he said, the median wages are falling and is in the real terms even lower, hence the distribution is critical here.
In the second quarter, the growth stood at 6.3 per cent and in the third quarter it became 4.4 per cent.
Radhika Rao, executive director and senior economist at DBS Bank, said, “India’s real GDP growth moderated to 4.4 per cent in October-December 22 (Q3-FY23) from 6.3 per cent last year, part of which was on base effects and past revisions.
Growth in FY22 was raised by 40bp to 9.1 per cent, besides an increase in absolute numbers (rupee terms) for Q3-FY22, in essence lifting the comparative base vs FY23.
However, economic growth compared to pre-Covid level (Q3-FY20) was higher by 12 per cent by the December 22 quarter.
There was a dip in domestic demand due to moderation in consumption along with a slowing of imports.
The second advance estimates peg real GDP growth to remain unchanged at 7 per cent from previous estimates, even after undergoing an upward revision in the base period to 9.1 per cent against 8.7 per cent earlier, says a review report by JM Financial.
