MUMBAI: Consumer spending in India´s rural areas has plummeted to afour-decade low, a leading business daily reported Friday, bringing morebad news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he struggles to revive astuttering economy.

Consumer demand in India´s villages fell 8.8 percent between July 2017 andJune 2018 — the sharpest 12-month drop since 1972-73, the BusinessStandard reported, using unpublished data recorded by India´s NationalStatistical Office (NSO).

Two thirds of the 1.3 billion population live in rural areas, making it akey economic driver. But spending on food, education and clothing declined,with demand for essential items such as cereals plunging 20 percent, thenewspaper said.

The report should have been released in June, but was pushed back becauseof its “adverse” findings, Business Standard said citing sources familiarwith the matter.

A government official told AFP the report was not finished.

“The NSO report is still under processing and not validated, and manyofficials are not privy to the data,” said A.K. Mishra of the ministry ofstatistics.

The data “can only be confirmed once the ministry publishes the report”,Mishra added.

If the findings are confirmed, it would ring yet another alarm bell overAsia´s third-largest economy, which has endured five consecutive quartersof slowing growth.

In January, Business Standard reported that unemployment had surged to afour-decade high during Modi´s first term in power, citing unpublished datafrom the ministry.

The delay in releasing the jobs report prompted a top Indian governmentstatistician to quit in protest.

The report confirming the jobless data was finally released in May, afterModi was re-elected with a thumping majority, defeating challenger RahulGandhi.

On Friday, Gandhi hit out at the government´s alleged attempt to buryunflattering data, tweeting: “Modinomics stinks so bad, the Govt has tohide its own reports.”

To counter the fall in demand for everything from cars to cookies, India´scentral bank has trimmed interest rates five times in a row, but to littleeffect.

Experts say India´s economy has never recovered from Modi´s surprise cashban in 2016, which made 86 percent of the currency in circulation void.Many small businesses shut up shop and hundreds of thousands lost theirjobs.

The rollout of a nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2017worsened the situation as businesses struggled to adjust to the new rules.

In October, market researcher Nielsen said Indian rural consumption hadslumped to a seven-year low, highlighting falling income for farmers whoare struggling with mounting debt. -APP/AFP