Such a discrepancy should have dramatic implications for India’s poverty estimates—a difference in the order of hundreds of millions. This also implies hardly any acceleration of per capita household expenditure, as surveys reported an equivalent growth rate of 1.1 per cent during India’s pre-reform period. However, corresponding data from the national accounts show that household expenditure per capita grew, on average, by 4.5 per cent annually over the past two decades. Thus, the survey data seem to fail to take account of India’s faster economic growth.