Chhattisgarh highest incidence of poverty: C Rangarajan panel

NEW DELHI: Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Assam figure among the poorest states where over 40 per cent of people are below poverty line, according to the C Rangarajan panel.

According to the report of the panel headed by former PMEAC Chairman C Rangarajan, 47.9 per cent people are poor in Chhattisgarh followed by 46.7 per cent in Manipur and 45.9 per cent in Odisha in 2011-12.

The poor population was 44.3 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 42.4 per cent in Jharkhand, 41.3 per cent Bihar and 40.9 per cent in Assam.

The Planning Commission in June 2012 had constituted the expert group under Rangarajan to review the Suresh Tendulkar Committee methodology for estimating poverty, following an uproar over the number of poor in the country.

The expert group which has recently submitted its report on poverty to Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, has pegged the population of poor at 29.5 per cent in the country for 2011-12, higher than 21.9 per cent estimated on basis of Tendulkar Committee methodology.

As per the report, Goa is the most prosperous state as it has least proportion of 6.3 per cent poor population. The state has very little rural poverty at 1.4 per cent.

The report further revealed that urban poverty is the highest in the country at staggering 73.4 per cent of the city population.

Among the other states, Bihar has high incidence of urban poverty at 50.8 per cent, meaning that every second person living in cities is poor.