1. Nearly half of the population in urban areas is in the highest wealth rung; in contrast only 7% of the rural population is in the highest wealth rung. Twenty-eight percent of the rural population is in the lowest wealth rung, in contrast to the urban areas, where only 3% of the population is in the lowest quintile.National Health Survey-2005-06
%Distribution of population by wealth Quintiles, 2005-06*

		WEALTH	QUINTILES
Res/State	Lower	Second	Middle	Fourth	Highest
Urban	3.0	6.4	13.8	28.9	47.9
Rural	27.7	26.1	22.8	16.0	7.4
Punjab	1.4	6.3	15.3	28.8	48.1
Kerala	1.0	4.1	12.2	37.8	44.8
Jharkhand	49.6	15.5	11.1	11.9	11.9
Orissa	39.5	19.9	17.3	13.4	9.9

(The wealth index is constructed while doing National Health Survey-2005-06 by combining information on 33 household assets and housing characteristics such as ownership of consumer items, type of dwelling, source of water, and availability of electricity into a single wealth index. The household population is divided into five equal groups of 20% each (quintiles) at the national level from 1 (lowest, poorest) to 5 (highest, wealthiest).

The distribution of the population across wealth quintiles shows large variations across states too. Punjab and Kerala top the wealth index with nearly half of the population in the highest. The distribution of the population across wealth quintiles shows large variations across states too. Punjab and Kerala top the wealth index with nearly half of the population in the highest wealth rung. Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, and Tripura, have only about one-tenth or less of their population in the highest wealth rung. In Jharkhand, half of the population falls into the lowest wealth quintile. By contrast, in about half of the states (like Haryana, Gujarat, Maha, T.N,A.P, Karnataka), less than 10 percent of households are in the lowest wealth rung.

 Half of the persons in scheduled-tribe households and about one in four (27%) persons in scheduled-caste households are in the lowest wealth rung. Those in the other backward classes are the most typical of the population as a whole: they are most evenly distributed across the wealth quintiles.
%Distribution of population by wealth Quintile by caste/tribe 2005-06

		WEALTH	QUINTILES
	Lowest	Second	Middle	Fourth	Highest	Total
S C	27.9	24.6	20.8	16.6	10.2	100
ST	49.9	23.6	13.4	8.0	5.2	100
OBC	18.1	22.1	23.2	21.1	15.6	100
Other	9.8	13.6	17.1	23.9	35.6	100
Don’t know	12.1	25.6	29.6	23.7	9.0	100

2. NSSO-AIDIS Survey throws data on similar pattern.

Though the computations of wealth are different, they are broadly indicative of similar wide disparities between rural/urban population and regions.
Main findings are:
i. Growth in per capita net worth was faster in urban areas.

ii. The top 10% of individuals possess a little over half of the net wealth in the country, while the bottom 10% possesses a mere 0.4% of the net wealth. The bottom 50% of the popu­lation owns less than 105of the total wealth. . There is concentration of wealth in the top 20% of the population. In particular, the top 1% is making solid gains relative to the rest of the population. India is shining more brightly on 20% of its popula­tion.

iii. There is a wide range in per capita holdings among states. Among the major states, for example, the per capita asset holdings in the most wealthy state (Punjab) was Rs 77,000 per person in 2002, about four times as much as the per capita holdings in the least wealthy major state (Bihar), which has a per capita wealth of Rs 19,700.

iv. Educational and occupational differences also are strongly correlated with average wealth holdings.

v. Average asset holdings in rural India are lower than average asset holdings in urban India. Asset holdings are also relatively more equitably distributed in rural areas as compared with that in urban India. The average value of assets per households for rural areas is estimated at Rs.2,65,000 in 2002 as against Rs. 1,07,000 in 1991. In urban areas it is Rs.4,17,000 in 2002 as against Rs.1,44,000. A rural cultivator household on an average, owned assets of Rs.3.73 lakh about three and half times more than those owned by non-cultivator household of Rs. 1.07 lakh. The difference in the urban areas in this respect were narrower: AVA of self-employed household at Rs.5.6 lakh was 1.6 times or 64 per cent higher than AVA of other urban households at Rs. 3.4 lakh.The average value of assets per households in 2002, for rural areas is estimated at 63% of assets per household in urban areas.

vi. While both rural and urban households face inequality in the distribution of assets the top decennial group broadly enjoys the large chunk of asset holdings; for the top-most asset group of Rs. 8 lakh and above, the share of asset is 42% in rural areas and 63 per cent in urban areas.

vii. Among regions, northern region owning 22% of assets), southern region (23%) and central region (24%) hold maximum assets. Generally, in these regions, the poorest classes hold meagre amount of assets - northern region (0.07%), southern region (0.32%) and central region (0.11%). As against this, the highest asset owning classes in these regions own bulk of the assets – northern region (66.70%), southern region (49.99 per cent) and central region (44.30%).

viii. Households with higher assets are more advantageously placed and have greater opportunities to avail of and use credit facilities for improving their income. On the other hand, households with lower assets suffer from poor repaying capacity and lesser opportunities to avail of and use credit facilities resulting in low levels of production activity.

ix. In 2002, in rural areas about 8% of the households owned very low assets worth Rs.15000 or even less and at the other end about 23% of the households owned assets amounting to Rs. 3 lakh and more. In urban areas, corresponding percentages of households were 17 and 34 respectively.

x. About 27% of rural and 185 of urban households reported debt i.e. cash loans outstanding as 30.6.2002. Average amount of debt was Rs.7500 for rural households and Rs. 11800 for urban households.

3. Percent distribution of ownership of agricultural land

	Urban	Rural
No agri land	81.0	41.5
Irrigated land only
< 1 acre	2.9	11.2
1-5 acres	5.6	15.1
6+ acres	1.9	3.2
Non-Irrigated land only
< 1 acre	1.2	5.4
1-5 acres	3.7	12.3
6+ acres	1.0	2.3
Both Irrigated and non-irrigated
< I acre	0.2	0.9
1-5 acres	1.1	5.0
6+ acres	0.9	2.7
Missing	0.6	0.3

Distribution of Ownership Holdings of Land (2003-04, in %)

proportion	of	house	holds
Landless	Less than0.4 ha	0.4-1 ha	1-2 ha	2-3 ha	3-5 ha	5-10 ha	>10 ha
31.12	29.82	18.97	10.68	4.22	3.06	1.6	0.52

Proportion	of	Area	owned
landless	Less than0.4 ha	0.4-1 ha	1-2 ha	2-3 ha	3.5 ha	5-10 ha	>10 ha	Gini Co efficient
0	5.11	16.89	20.47	13.94	16.59	15.21	11.77	0.76

Among rural households, 30% own only irrigated agricultural land, 20% own only non-irrigated agricultural land and 9% own both irrigated and non-irrigated land. 85% of households that own land have parcels of land that are of five or less acres and the proportion of land owned by them is 42%. Conversely 15% of households that own land have parcels of land that are more than 5 acres and the proportion of land owned by them is 58%. There is wide disparity in ownership of land as evidenced by Gini Co- efficient of 0.76.

4. Educational Attainment of household population-Level of education

			FEMALE
	No.Edu	<5years	5 to 9 years	10-11 years	12 or more years	Tot
Urban	25.3	15.5	30.7	11.4	17.1	100
Rural	45.6	19.3	23.8	4.6	3.4	100
			MALE
Urban	12.5	15.9	33.6	14.4	23.5	100
Rural	26.5	23.4	33.0	8.7	8.1	100

 Among the population age six and over, 42% of females and 22% of males have never attended school, and 18% of females and 21 percent of males have less than 5 years of completed education. Only 14 % of females and 24% of males have completed 10 or more years of education. Eight percent of females and 13% of males have completed 12 or more years of schooling. 
Among all the states, Kerala ranks first with the lowest proportion of females and males with no education (10 and 5 %, respectively), followed closely by Mizoram. Delhi ranks first in terms of educational attainment. Twenty-eight percent of females and 32% of males in Delhi have completed 12 or more years of education.
At the other extreme, Bihar has the highest proportions of both females (60%) and males (35%) who have no education. Other states in which at least half of females age six years or more have no education, include Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand. At least one in four males has no education in Nagaland, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. The lowest level of educational attainment for males is found in Bihar, Meghalaya, and Arunachal Pradesh, where the median number of years of schooling for males is three years or less.

5. Conclusions

Majority of the population witnessed increases in its abso­lute wealth levels during the period of liberalisation. These impressive increases in wealth levels have been unequal across different groups. There is concentration of wealth in the top 20% of the population. In particular, the top 1% is making solid gains relative to the rest of the population. The first decade of reforms witnessed an impressive increase in wealth as well as a rise in its concentration, especially at the upper end. 85% of households that own land have parcels of land that are of five or less acres. Only 3% of the females and 8% of the males in rural areas have completed 12 or more years of schooling.

6. Wealth Increases

Per capita net worth annual growth rate was close to 3 per cent between 1991-92 and 2002-03. About 1-2% of the studied population has zero or negative net worth. The proportion of individuals in this category has risen from 1% of the sample population in 1991 to 1.5% of the sample popula­tion in 2002.

7. Wealth Disparities

The Gini figures of over 0.64 for per capita net worth for the entire population show very high wealth concentration in India in both these surveys. At the same time, there is also a per­ceptible trend of increasing disparities as the Gini rose from 0.64 to 0.66 between 1991 and 2002.
The share of wealth of the bottom 80% of the population seems to have been either stagnant or suffered mild declines whereas the upper 20%has tended to consolidate its holdings. This indicates that India is shining more brightly on 20 per cent of its popula­tion.
The ratio of urban net wealth to rural net wealth in per capita terms has widened from 1.37 in 1991-92 to about 1.5 in 2002-03.The rich and the poor states seem to be clearly diverging in terms of the over­all accumulation of assets. However, the middle income states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and T.N, with their phe­nomenal urban growth seem to have witnessed an impressive accumulation of household assets.