This blog has persistently hammered away at the possibility that India's much discussed middle class may after all be far smaller than estimated. One more data point is from this assessment from the India Human Development Survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in 2011-12.
Just 3% of Indians, or about 7-8 million households, own all the five things generally associated with middle-class status! In fact, nearly 65% of Indians own either none or just one (most likely a television) of the things, and 80% just two. As Livemint writes, the scale of transformation required is simply staggering. And the vast majority of discussion just don't realise this.
Update 1 (16.05.2020)
About the Indian consumption class,
According to the Azim Premji University’s state of working India report of 2018, about 85% of India’s workforce earns less than Rs 10,000 a month. About 50% earns less than Rs 5,000 a month, or less than Rs 166 a day.
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