India’s temporal inequality: Why the poorer you are, longer the queue

In Focus by The Hindu · Apr 29, 2026 · 32m

We all know that India is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. But most debates around inequality are focussed on wealth and income inequality. But there is another form of inequality that isn’t talked about much – temporal inequality.

How much time a person spends waiting – determines how much time she has for other life-critical activities. In India, it is the poor who spend more time waiting in queues – waiting for essential services like healthcare, rations, and in government offices.

Digitisation was supposed to fix this by cutting waiting time. But has it done so? Or has…