Poverty in India!!

Poverty is widespread in India, with the nation estimated to have a third of the world's poor. According to a 2005 World Bankestimate, 41.6% of the total Indian population falls below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day (PPP, in nominal terms  21.6 a day in urban areas and  14.3 in rural areas).A recent report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative states that 8 Indian states have more poor than 26 poorest African nations combined which totals to more than 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.According to a new UN Millennium Development Goals Report, as many as 320 million people in India and China are expected to come out of extreme poverty in the next four years, while India's poverty rate is projected to drop to 22% in 2015.The report also indicates that in Southern Asia, however, only India, where the poverty rate is projected to fall from 51% in 1990 to about 22% in 2015, is on track to cut poverty in half by the 2015 target date.

The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report ranked India 15th, amongst leading countries with hunger situation. It also places India amongst the three countries where the GHI between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi, succeeded in improving hunger condition.

POVERTY ESTIMATES IN INDIA:-

A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 645 million poor living under the MPI in India, 421 million of whom are concentrated in eight North Indian and East Indian states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This number is higher than the 410 million poor living in the 26 poorest African nations.The states are listed below in increasing order of poverty based on the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index.

MPI rank	States	Population (in millions) 2007	MPI	Proportion of poor	Average intensity	Contribution to overall poverty	Number of MPI poor (in millions)
—	India	1,164.7	0.296	55.4%	53.5%	-	645.0
1	Kerala	35.0	0.065	15.9%	40.9%	0.6%	5.6
2	Goa	1.6	0.094	21.7%	43.4%	0.0%	0.4
3	Punjab	27.1	0.120	26.2%	46.0%	1.0%	7.1
4	Himachal Pradesh	6.7	0.131	31.0%	42.3%	0.3%	2.1
5	Tamil Nadu	68.0	0.141	32.4%	43.6%	2.6%	22.0
6	Uttarakhand	9.6	0.189	40.3%	46.9%	0.5%	3.9
7	Maharashtra	108.7	0.193	40.1%	48.1%	6.0%	43.6
8	Haryana	24.1	0.199	41.6%	47.9%	1.3%	10.0
9	Gujarat	57.3	0.205	41.5%	49.2%	3.4%	23.8
10	Jammu and Kashmir	12.2	0.209	43.8%	47.7%	0.7%	5.4
11	Andhra Pradesh	83.9	0.211	44.7%	47.1%	5.1%	37.5
12	Karnataka	58.6	0.223	46.1%	48.3%	4.2%	27.0
13	Eastern Indian States	44.2	0.303	57.6%	52.5%	4.0%	25.5
14	West Bengal	89.5	0.317	58.3%	54.3%	8.5%	52.2
15	Orissa	40.7	0.345	64.0%	54.0%	4.3%	26.0
16	Rajasthan	65.4	0.351	64.2%	54.7%	7.0%	41.9
17	Uttar Pradesh	192.6	0.386	69.9%	55.2%	21.3%	134.7
18	Chhattisgarh	23.9	0.387	71.9%	53.9%	2.9%	17.2
19	Madhya Pradesh	70.0	0.389	69.5%	56.0%	8.5%	48.6
20	Jharkhand	30.5	0.463	77.0%	60.2%	4.2%	23.5
21	Bihar	95.0	0.499	81.4%	61.3%	13.5%	77.3

Estimates by NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research) show that 48% of the Indian households earn more than 90,000 (US$1,825.2) annually (or more than US$ 3 PPP per person). According to NCAER, in 2009, of the 222 million households in India, the absolutely poor households (annual incomes below  45,000) accounted for only 15.6% of them or about 35 million (about 200 million Indians). Another 80 million households are in income levels of  45,000– 90,000 per year. These numbers also are more or less in line with the latest World Bank estimates of the “below-the-poverty-line” households that may total about 100 million (or about 456 million individuals)

The World Bank estimates that 80% of India's population lives on less than $2 a day which means a higher proportion of its population lives on less than $2 per day as compared with sub-Saharan Africa.