Speaking at a webinar organised by the RSS-affiliated Swadesh Jagaran Manch (SJM) under its ongoing “Swawalambi Bharat Abhiyan” on October 2, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said, “India has attempted positively to be self-reliant and the world community has acknowledged its initiatives. Although the country has attained success in the economic sector in the recent past it needs to handle a few issues urgently. The country needs to get rid of demon-like challenges it has been facing for decades and one of them is poverty.”
The Swawalambi Bharat Abhiyan is an attempt to inculcate entrepreneurial skills among the youth. The webinar was organised on the occasion of the birth anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri.
“As many as 23 crore people have less than Rs 375 income per day. The Labour Force survey published in June indicated that there are four crore unemployed in the country and the unemployment rate is 7.6 percent,” the RSS functionary said, adding that the situation has improved in the past few years as compared to 22 percent of poverty in the country 10 years ago, it is 18 percent now. “In 2020, the per capita income was Rs 1.35 lakh per annum, which has improved to Rs 1.5 lakh in 2022,” he said.
“It is good that the country has been ranked as the sixth largest economy in the world. But the top one percent of India’s population has one-fifth (20 percent) of the nation’s income. At the same time, 50 percent of the country’s population has only 13 percent of the country’s income. We must think about this economic inequality,” Hosabale said.
He also referred to the observations made by the United Nations on the state of poverty and development in India.
“The flawed policies of decades resulted in migrations on a large scale from villages to cities. The current government has taken several initiatives to make paradigm changes,” Hosabale said, adding that the “Self-Reliant India” campaign launched under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi was a true tribute to leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri.
