The National Sample Survey Office recently released the All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) report, which measures the levels of assets and liabilities of households. This is the sixth report of its kind — the exercise began in 1971.

       Though the successive surveys and their results are not strictly comparable, we look at how assets and debt grew over the last few decades. In rural areas, the average value of assets owned by a household grew 15 times since the economic reforms began in 1991. But the average outstanding debt grew 31 times, or twice as fast, during the same ...