Standard of living in India

For example, on one hand most metropolitan cities and other urban and suburban regions boast world-class medical establishments, luxurious hotels, sports facilities and leisure activities similar to that of Western nations, while there is significant poverty in rural areas of India; where medical care tends to be very basic or unavailable due to a lack of doctors.

[2] On the other hand, the Planning Commission of India uses its own criteria and has estimated that 27.5% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004–2005, down from 51.3% in 1977–1978, and 36% in 1993–1994.

[13] In August 2005, the Indian parliament passed the Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, the largest programme of this type, in terms of cost and coverage, which promises 100 days of minimum wage employment to every rural household in 200 of India's 600 districts.

The Indian government is planning to bring in more economic reforms which can help farmers and unskilled labourers transition into industrialised sectors.

Since independence, India has allocated nearly half of the total outlay of the five-year plans for infrastructural development.

Much of the total outlay was spent on large projects in the area of irrigation, energy, transport, communications and social overheads.

Development of infrastructure was completely in the hands of the public sector and was plagued by corruption, bureaucratic inefficiencies, urban-bias and an inability to scale investment.

The more advanced states are better placed to benefit from them, with infrastructure like well developed ports, urbanisation and an educated and skilled workforce which attract manufacturing and service sectors.