By Bhogtoram Mawroh
Recently, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, released the report on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey: 2023-24. The survey covered the period from August 2023 to July 2024. Collecting data on household income is notoriously difficult because individuals often under-report their income when self-reporting. Therefore, researchers use indirect methods for the purpose. One of the easiest and commonly used is the per capita distribution of the value of the GDP of a region. According to official statistics, the State Gross Domestic Product of Meghalaya during 2023-2024 was 53,057 Crore, which was the third lowest in the country among those for which data is available.
For Per Capita Net State Domestic Product, the state did a little better – they were the fifth lowest in the country at 11,412 rupees per month. This figure is a little higher than the prescribed minimum wage for an unskilled worker which is 9,174 rupees per month but lower than the minimum wage declared for a skilled worker, which is 12,826 rupees per month if a worker were to work for 22 days a month. Inequality makes the figures look even worse. When a few groups (referred to as High Level pejoratively in the local context) capture a large share of the value (GDP) produced in the economy, the income received by most of the population will be even lower.
Let’s assume that there’s a person in Meghalaya who has recently bought a BMW. I checked the price of the car within India and it ranges from Rs 43 lakhs to over crore. Even if we take the lower range, if someone were to buy a BMW, obviously their total assets are over 43 lakhs, maybe double or triple. But still assuming that someone has bought this car by using up their entire wealth, this still amounts to the average monthly income of over 335 people. If you triple the assets of the BMW owner, i.e., 129 lakhs, it means that their total wealth is more than the average monthly income of over 1000 people.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has recently claimed that the Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma is officially the 10th richest Chief Minister in the country with total assets worth Rs 14,06,83,315 or 14.06 crore. If we do the same analysis, the total wealth of the Chief Minister is equal to the monthly income of over 10,962 people. In the last election, the richest candidate was Metbah Lyngdoh who had declared assets worth 146.31 crore, so his wealth is equal to the monthly income of over 11,40,73 or over 1 lakh people. These figures are absolutely mind-blowing. Basically, Meghalaya is a state with a few filthy rich people surrounded by a sea of very poor people.
However, this approach can be criticized on the grounds that GDP measures the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a territory, excluding items that are not produced or manufactured for the market. For example, even today, many farmers consume a significant portion of what they produce within the household. Except for those growing cash crops like broom and areca nut, farmers in Meghalaya typically consume at least half, or more, of what they grow, with only the surplus reaching the market. Basically, the calculation for the GDP leaves out non-market transactions. Thus, people can consider the official figures an under-estimation, and make the argument that the disparity is actually much lesser. It is therefore important to look at expenditure, which gives a more direct estimation of the socio-economic status of an individual or household.
The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) report collects information on consumption and expenditure of the households on goods and services. In this way, it helps to understand the consumption and expenditure pattern, standard of living and well-being of the households. According to the report, the average Monthly Per capita Consumer Expenditure (MPCE) during 2023-24 for Meghalaya was 3,852 rupees in rural areas and 7,839 rupees in urban areas. These figures are lower than the national average for rural areas and higher than average for urban areas. Out of the 36 states and union territories, the state ranks 28th for rural areas and 16th for urban areas. This results in a significant gap between the two, the third largest in the country, with an expenditure difference of 104%. With approximately 80% of Meghalaya’s population residing in rural areas, this strongly indicates that the majority of the state’s population is living under highly vulnerable conditions.
At the same time, it has to be acknowledged that the present figures are higher than the previous assessment period, i.e., 2022-2023. During this period, the MPCE for rural areas was 3,514 rupees and for urban areas, was 6,433 rupees. This is an increase of almost 10% for rural areas and over 21% for urban areas. However, determining whether actual improvement has occurred requires factoring the inflation rate in the calculations. The annual inflation rate in India has been between 5-6%. Thus, urban areas have seen an expenditure increase of over 15% above the inflation rate (which can be roughly likened to a rise in income), while rural areas have merely matched inflation. A lower than 5% increase in expenditure would have meant that expenditure has actually decreased in real terms (people are actually spending less because of a fall in income). So, the situation of the people in the rural areas is very precarious.
To make matters worse, the study revealed that in rural areas, the proportion of expenditure allocated to food was 47%, indicating that out of every 100 rupees spent, 47 rupees were used for food. As mentioned earlier, in rural areas farmers consume a lot of the produce which they grow with only surplus being sold in the market. If the farmers were not to grow their own food, the expenditure on food would be much higher (would easily cross 50% and more of the total expenditure). So, self-production is saving the rural population from falling into an even worse situation by avoiding a large part of the expenditure. This suggests that inequality is higher than what the official figures indicate. Therefore, regardless of the perspective, GDP, i.e., total income or total expenditure, the overall condition of the people in the state, particularly the rural population, is quite poor. What is very concerning is that it could get worse in the future given the widening inequality that is growing.
The upcoming district council election is therefore very important. We need to see if the parties looking to form the government have any plans to solve the actual problems afflicting the society. Most probably, the parties looking to govern will use two issues to appeal to the voters: protection of the jaidbynriew and anti-corruption. The first of course is nothing but a diversionary tactic to create a feeling of false victimhood among the people so that they don’t really pay attention to the genuine problems and instead blame the non-existent illegal immigration problem. The second is more relevant considering the financial irregularities that are emerging from the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) reports. But it was the anti-corruption movement that brought the BJP to power for the first time. Over ten years after that, we have the Hindu Jaidbynriew/Hindutva politics being used to divert from the fact that over 80 crore people or over 60% of the country’s population are surviving on free food grains. This occurs when there is no clear plan in place to improve the standard of living of the people, and political rhetoric is used merely to win elections. We will have to wait and see what would be the manifesto of the different political parties for the district council election and how they intend to improve the lives of the common people. Or we are going to be fooled by jaidbynriew politics under the garb of the anti-corruption slogan. We will find out soon enough.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution)