New Delhi: For nearly 75 percent of the 17.9 crore (nearly 180 million) households in rural India, the monthly income of the highest-earning member is less than Rs.5,000, even as close to 40 percent are landless and work as manual casual labourers for their daily bread, latest official data reveals.

This is the finding of the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 for Rural India released Friday that also shows that nearly 25 percent of the rural households still do not own a phone despite India boasting a telecom subscriber base of around a billion.