India's middle class: A huge myth!
A middle class family is one where its head has a steady, permanent job fetching him/her a monthly salary of Rs.25,000-30,000, and has it has a permanent roof over its head, a decent dwelling unit.
Only people working in government service (including semi- and quasi-government agencies like schools and colleges, railways), public sector undertakings, MNCs, large Indian corporate, and nationalized and private banks, and offer this kind of salaries. They may account for a maximum of 2% of India's population, or about 2.5 crores in absolute number terms. While the rest of 95% of working class population are in small workshops as in slums and other areas and in industrial estates – the maximum these workers get is in the region of Rs.10,000.
Even with a 30,000-rupee salary, no one can buy a home worth Rs.15 lakhs (where the EMI would be no less than 17,000-18,000) and more importantly such houses – or what can be called so – are not available even in third tier towns in India, leave alone the second tier cities like Bangalore, Pune, Coimbatore, Madurai, Ahmedabad, etc.
In the last one year the cost of living has been veritably going through the roof – vegetables cost upwards Rs.50 a kilo, and a rich State government like Maharasthra is congratulating itself for making these veggies available via their own make-shift shops at Rs.5 than the market price!
To cap it all, the Food Security bill that excludes the entire middle class! With the bill coming into effect, the open market prices of rice, wheat and sugar are certain to shoot up – the medium variety rice that currently sells for about Rs.40 a kilo could go up to Rs.150 a kilo in a year's time.
In effect, India will only have two classes: (1) the affluent (and the relatively affluent like those working in the higher echelons of industries) numbering about 1% and (2) the poor comprising of the remaining 99%.
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Posted By
cris iyer
www.keralites.net          |
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