Poverty in India at the eve of Independence

  • The National Planning Committee of 1936 noted the appalling poverty of undivided India
    • There was lack of food, of clothing, of housing and of every other essential requirement of human existence.
  • At the time of Independence the incidence of poverty in India was about 80% or about 250 million
  • After Independence, the reports published estimated poverty rates in 1950s as cyclical and a strong function of each year’s harvest
    • In 1956-57, India’s poverty rates was computed to be 65%(215 million people)