New Delhi: More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a pre-budget survey by C-Voter showed Wednesday.
Notably, the government is set to present the Union budget on February 1, Saturday.
More than 37% of respondents said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, according to the survey, as reported by news agency Reuters.
This is the highest such response since 2013, in what does not speak highly of the Modi government’s treatment of the Indian economy.
A total of 5,269 adults across Indian states were interviewed for the survey.
Nearly two thirds of the respondents, the report stated, felt inflation had remained unchecked and prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister in 2014. More than 50% of respondents said that the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life.
Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year but expenses rose. Nearly two thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, according to the survey.
Continuous food inflation with little to no respite has crippled the spending power of most Indian households. The annual growth is forecast to be around 6.4%, the slowest growth pace in four years.
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The middle-class, traditionally seen as the engine of growth, is facing the brunt of it and expects the issues to be addressed in the upcoming budget session.
In 2024, questions were raised about India’s job market having a large youthful population struggling for sufficient opportunities to earn regular wages even as the country climbs on the global economic growth scale.
In the previous budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced an allocation of Rs 2 lakh crore for a ‘PM package’ of various employment-related schemes, to be spent over five years.
However, the programmes have not yet been implemented, the Reuters report stated.