Indian poverty and aid briefing

India has a big economy, but also an enormous population and extensive poverty. While India is classified by the World Bank as a middle income country (MIC), having graduated from low income status in 2007, it remains very near the lower threshold of middle income status. MICs are a wide‐ranging group, covering a broad spectrum of development levels. Despite popular comparisons with fellow MIC China, India is in a very different development position. More than one‐third of the world’s poorest people live in India, and it has more poor people than any other country. This latest report by Development Initiatives aims to look at the key data in official development assistance to the worlds second most populous country.

Key conclusions:

1. With a rapidly growing population and workforce, growth in national income has outpaced per capita income growth in India in recent years. Trends in India’s average income have been closer to Nigeria’s than the other BRICS since 1990.
2. One‐third of its population, some 400 million people, live on less than US$1.25 a day.
3. half of these states and territories, many with populations to rival other countries, had average GDP per capita of less than US$1,000 a year in 2010/11. These 17 states account for
   780 million people, the majority of India’s population.
4. Government resources in India are low in per capita terms, averaging US$350 per person in 2010. India ranks 121st in the world on this measure, and has expenditure equivalent to just
   over one‐third of China’s (US$995 per capita)
5. Net official development assistance (ODA), an international benchmark measure of aid, to India totalled US$2.8 billion in 2010. Since the mid‐1990s remittances have grown around
   five‐fold to reach US$54 billion in 2010, while foreign investment (foreign direct investment (FDI) and smaller, often shorter‐term portfolio investments) grew from US$10 billion in 2000
   to US$65 billion in 2010.

You can also download the data here in Excel, CSV and OpenDocument