"High rate of economic growth has bypassed 77 per cent of population, which is living on a meagre income of Rs 20 per day... barely sufficient to survive," he said, while addressing the eighth Editors' Conference on social sector issues in New Delhi on Thursday.
The economic reforms have mainly benefited the 235 million middle class people, he said, adding, "that is why people have started talking about inclusive growth."
Welcoming high growth he said, "it should be used an instrument to achieve inclusive growth...It
has become a mantra, but in actual practice they do not do anything."
Sengupta added that the lot of the extremely poor people has only improved marginally since the launch of the economic reforms and bulk of them are still vulnerable as one disaster could push them back into poverty syndrome.
Suggesting that the country needs different kind of policy to improve the condition of poor people, he said, "a policy, which cannot be implemented is not a policy."
Commenting on the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, he said, it has been successfully implemented in certain quarters and there was a need to replicate that experience in places where the scheme had failed to yield results.
