Here are the preliminary findings of a new study by the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP, the People's Science Movement that was famously at the forefront of the total literacy campaign).Among several other significant findings on "How Kerala Lives and What Kerala Thinks", the study found that "the rising incomes" reported since the 1990s have benefited only a thin upper crust of 10 per cent of people consisting of the immensely rich and the upper middle class. Along with rising health care, education and social expenditure costs, poverty and debts have increased for 90 per cent of the others.
The 10 per cent upper crust corner 41.2 per cent of the income, while the poorest 10 per cent get only 1.3 per cent. Among Indian States, disparity was widening most sharply in Kerala, with assets, especially land, flowing from 91 per cent of the people into the hands of the affluent 9 per cent. The study found that there was wide disparity in the incidence of poverty among rural and urban areas, districts (high poverty rate in districts that had reported the largest number of farmer suicides during UDF rule) and communities.
