Addressing a small gathering after hoisting the national flag on the campus, he said the gross enrolment ratio (GER) for higher education in India was only 26 per cent. Referring to poverty alleviation, he said, though India was growing economically, the nation should be able to say that it had no poor person in the country. This could take some time as a survey had revealed that the nation was home to 13 crore poor persons.