Datametrics: India’s rank in income inequality

In the absence of more credible official data on household income, trends in India's income inequality would continue to be a contested domain, writes Jugal Mohapatra

- Jugal Mohapatra

A press note by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Government of India (GOD) on 5th July, 2025-captioned "India's story on Bridging Inequality" - has attracted enormous interest both from the supporters and detractors of the ruling NDA Government at the Centre.

The press release, relying on the latest World Bank data, asserts that India, with a Gini Index of 25.5, is now the "fourth most equal country" in the World, after the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and (unbelievably) Belarus. While the supporters of the Government are applauding this milestone as a vindication of its pro-poor "Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas" policy, the detractors find this claim of India having been transformed into “one of the most equal societies today", outshining major economies like China, UK and USA in terms of income inequality (measured by the Gini Index), hard to believe. Eschewing ideological leanings, does the World Bank data, cited by the PIB, indeed show that India's income inequality is the fourth lowest in the World?

For the information of the readers unfamiliar with Economics, inequality of income, wealth and consumption is commonly measured using the Gini Index (or coefficient), which varies between 0 and 100 (coefficient lies between 0 and 1). An index value of 0 signifies perfect equality, and 100 highest inequality.