Running India on a ₹100 budget: Where would you put the money?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Should India focus on free schools and hospitals for the poor or invest in public infrastructure? Offer tax relief to the middle class or prioritize cash transfers for those in need? Boost rural development or build global cities? These are the pressing choices that shape debates on India's welfare policies. In the latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey conducted in July, we explored public preferences on these questions.

Participants were asked to choose between paired policy options, revealing clear inclinations. An overwhelming 70% prioritized free healthcare and education for the poor over public infrastructure. Two-thirds favoured tax relief for the middle class over cash transfers.

Similarly, over 70% preferred developing villages to building cities, and a similar share leaned towards income-based reservations in private jobs over caste-based ones. The July survey was the 12th in a series that Mint runs biannually with YouGov India and Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research. It had 10,314 respondents from over 200 towns and cities and was held online.

About 45% of the respondents were post-millennials (Gen Z, born after 1996), and 39% were millennials (born between 1981 and 1996). Also read | How social media fed politics and strained relations during 2024 polls More respondents preferred increasing tax for big companies (63%) over having an inheritance tax (37%), and creating more government jobs for the youth (57%) over enabling private businesses to create more jobs (43%). Around 53% said the government should focus on narrowing the rich-poor gap (53%) over high economic growth (47%).