Interim Budget 2019: Identify those 'too rich for dole, too poor to thrive'

It is imperative to identify people who are too rich for dole and too poor to thrive; people who have neither economic security nor social security

The Budget season is upon us, and it’s time for some reckoning. Much has been said about rising income levels in India this year. Yet, Oxfam Inequality Report 2019 estimates it would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year. The inequality is troubling, no doubt. But there’s something I find even more troubling. The definition of income for the purposes of social security schemes doesn’t take into account one critical variable — economic vulnerability. Today, many in the country’s