7.5% economic growth failed to change people's lives: Jean Dreze

New Delhi: India's average economic growth rate of 7.5 percent in the last 12 years has failed to bring about any significant improvement in the quality of life of the common people, noted development economist Jean Dreze said.

"The Indian economy has been growing at around 7.5 percent per year for the last twelve years, with relatively small deviations up or down from this average.

"...Few countries have grown so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of widely-shared improvements in the quality of life," Dreze told PTI in an interview.

Dreze, a former member of UPA's National Advisory Council and now a visiting professor at the department of economics, Ranchi University, said the growth rates of the last two years are in line with this trajectory.

"This is an achievement of sorts since the world economy is not doing particularly well at this time," he said.

Dreze, who has done extensive work in India on issues like hunger, famine, and the NREGA said: "The main issue is not to raise the growth rate further, which may or may not be possible, but to ensure that growth is associated with rapid improvements in people's living conditions."

Indian economy grew at 7.6 percent in 2015-16.