Rural India, a reality check By: Rajesh Shukla | Published: August 14, 2015 12:28 AM The assumption that rural households are largely dependent on farm income is no more valid There is a quiet change sweeping through the Indian countryside, one that has virtually crept up on us during the past decade. Yet few people realise the implications and consequences of the enormous changes taking place. Let’s take a closer look at some of these realities and what these signify for the well-being of not just the 800 million people living in its 6 lakh villages but the entire nation. Rural India’s share of national income and expenditure is above the half mark. The ICE 360 survey (2014) reveals that rural India contributes over half of India’s income (55.4%), has a share of 56.1% of consumption expenditure, and its 179.5 million households have a share of 52.3% of the country’s surplus income. The fact of the matter i s that while most of the bottom of income pyramid families live in rural India, around half of the upper income households are also located there. The good news is that rural poor have increased their consumption more than urban poor. The bad news is that there is a huge income disparity between the rich and the poor in rural India which continues to widen. The perception of rural India is one of a large population comprising small and marginal farmers with pockets of rich farming households in the so-called food baskets of Punjab and Haryana. The truth is half of all rural households do not have any land holdings, 37% are marginal farmers, 7% are small farmers, 3% have small-to-medium sized farms, 2% have medium-sized farm holdings and 0.1% have large cultivable land holdings. The assumption that rural households are largely dependent on farm income is no more valid. Consider this: A little over a quarter of all the households (25.8%) or 46.2 million families in rural India depend on incomes from cultivation of land. An overwhelming majority (76.2 million households, 42.5%) earn their livelihood from non-farm activities. There are 39.2 million families (21.8%) that are dependent on a combination of farm and non-farm incomes. This indicates that agriculture-dependence has gone down drastically. Interestingly, the households that depend on a combination of farm and non-farm activities are the ones that are doing better than other households on the income, expenditure and surplus