INDIAN POVERTY DWINDLES

Indian Poverty dwindles

--Dr.Debesh Bhowmik

 

India BPL is assumed to be Rs 27.20 per person per day in rural area and Rs 33.20 per person perday in urban area.Having this poverty line,India’s population below the poverty line became 270 million or one fifth of the population or about 21.9% in 2011-12. In urban area, India’s BPL was 81 million in 2004-05 which declined to 53 million in 2011-12 ie a change of 12%, but in rural area it was 326 million or 42% in 2004-05 which fell down to 217 million or 25% of the population ie a change of 17%.So, rural poverty amelioration had a great success story.in the Table, we can verify the state scenario of poverty in recent times.Among the worst five states, Chhattisgarh ranks top followed by Jharkhand,Manipur,Arunachal Pradesh, and Bihar and also followed by Odisha ,Madhyapradesh, UP,Gujrat and Rajasthan respectively. On the other hand, among the five best performance of  the states are Goa followed by Kerala,Himachal Pradesh,Punjab and Puduchery respectively.Prime Minister Dr.Monmohan Singh said that poverty rate had declined at the rate of 2.0% oer year during 2004-05-2011-12 in comparison to 0.74% during 1993-94-2004-05.

	India’s Poverty (% of people below the poverty  line)
	2004-05	2011-12
Name of States	Worst five states
Chhattisgarh	49.4	39.93
Jharkhand	45.3	36.96
Manipur	37.9	36.89
Arunachal Pradesh	31.4	34.67
Bihar	54.4	33.74
Odisha	57.2	32.6
MadhyaPradesh		31.6
UttarPradesh		30.0
Gujrat		16.6
Rajasthan		14.7
	Best five states
Goa	24.9	5.09
Kerala	19.6	7.05
Himachal	22.9	8.06
Punjab	20.9	8.26
Puduchery	14.2	9.69

Souce-ET