Rural landlessness, the strongest indicator of poverty, which afflicts a third of Indians, can be eradicated if the government acted on pending bills and policy recommendations.
India’s economy has already crossed $2 trillion and is growing annually at around 6%. But these figures cannot hide the fact that 69% of the population is rural, and 70% of this, or nearly half of all Indians, still depend on land and land-based activities for their livelihoods, according to figures in the India Rural Development Report 2012-2013, released by Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation.
Landlessness is the best predictor of rural poverty in India, more than caste or illiteracy, a fact that has emerged clearly in the socio-economic and caste survey 2011 that the government released on July 3. The government has considered landlessness as a major indicator of rural poverty perhaps for the first time. The figures indicate that almost 54% of the rural population lives without any ownership of land.
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