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 Bank estimate, 41.6% of the total Indian population falls below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day (, in nominal terms 21.6 a day in urban areas and 14.3 in rural areas)........

Poverty estimates

There has been no uniform measure of poverty in India^[2][3]. The Planning Commission of India has accepted the Tendulkar Committee report which says that 37% of people in India live below the poverty line.^[4]
The Arjun Sengupta Report (from National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector) states that 77% of Indians live on less than 20 a day (about $0.50 per day).^[5] The N.C. Saxena Committee report states that 50% of Indians live below the poverty line.
A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 645 million^[6] 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.^[7] The states are listed below in increasing order of poverty based on the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index.^[8]

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	Uttaranchal	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