9% growth to cut poverty by 36%

New Delhi: A high growth will be imperative for the new government to pull more people out of poverty, create more jobs and increase the income of households hit by high price rise.

If India is able to see a fast growth of nine per cent then the number of people below poverty line will be reduced to 17.7 crores at the end of fiscal 2019 against 26.9 crores at the end of 2012, according to rating agency Crisil.

However, if India grew at 6.5 per cent then the number of poor during this period will be reduced to 22.6 crores. But in case growth remained at 5 per cent in the coming years then the number of people below poverty line will be 25.6 crores.

India’s working-age population would have swelled by over 85 million to fiscal 2019.  Of these, 5.1 crores would be seeking employment, said Crisil.  

With 6.5 per cent average GDP growth, non-farm employment over this period will at best grow by 3.7 crores. This means an additional 14 million will be forced to either depend on low-productivity agriculture or remain unemployed.

“However, much of the increase in farm jobs will be disguised unemployment. That’s because, given insufficient job opportunities, labour force will not be able to migrate to the higher-wage, more-productive industry and service sectors,” said Crisil.

Such a dismal situation would not arise if India were to grow at 9 per cent over the next five years as it will result in 5.2 crores non-farm jobs. “Enough non-farm employment would be created to absorb the entire incremental labour force within the industry and service sectors. Indeed, at 9 per cent growth, it would even be possible to pull additional people out of agriculture,” said the report. On the other hand, getting stuck in the 5 per cent growth will aggravate India’s employment situation as non-farm jobs will then increase by only 2.6 crores.