AFP, Mumbai :
Consumer spending in India’s rural areas has plummeted to a four-decade low, a leading business daily reported Friday, bringing more bad news for prime minister Narendra Modi as he struggles to revive a stuttering economy.
Consumer demand in India’s villages fell 8.8 per cent between July 2017 and June 2018 — the sharpest 12-month drop since 1972-73, the Business Standard reported, using unpublished data recorded by India’s National Statistical Office (NSO). Two thirds of the 1.3 billion population live in rural areas, making it a key economic driver. But spending on food, education and clothing declined, with demand for essential items such as cereals plunging 20 per cent, the newspaper said.
The report should have been released in June, but was pushed back because of its “adverse” findings, Business Standard said citing sources familiar with the matter. A government official told AFP the report was not finished. “The NSO report is still under processing and not validated, and many officials are not privy to the data,” said A K Mishra of the ministry of statistics.
The data “can only be confirmed once the ministry publishes the report”, Mishra added.
If the findings are confirmed, it would ring yet another alarm bell over Asia’s third-largest economy, which has endured five consecutive quarters of slowing growth.
Consumer spending in India’s rural areas has plummeted to a four-decade low, a leading business daily reported Friday, bringing more bad news for prime minister Narendra Modi as he struggles to revive a stuttering economy.
Consumer demand in India’s villages fell 8.8 per cent between July 2017 and June 2018 — the sharpest 12-month drop since 1972-73, the Business Standard reported, using unpublished data recorded by India’s National Statistical Office (NSO). Two thirds of the 1.3 billion population live in rural areas, making it a key economic driver. But spending on food, education and clothing declined, with demand for essential items such as cereals plunging 20 per cent, the newspaper said.
The report should have been released in June, but was pushed back because of its “adverse” findings, Business Standard said citing sources familiar with the matter. A government official told AFP the report was not finished. “The NSO report is still under processing and not validated, and many officials are not privy to the data,” said A K Mishra of the ministry of statistics.
The data “can only be confirmed once the ministry publishes the report”, Mishra added.
If the findings are confirmed, it would ring yet another alarm bell over Asia’s third-largest economy, which has endured five consecutive quarters of slowing growth.
