Poverty ratio in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand has declined by about 10 percentage points and more.

The number of poor in India has declined by 7.3 percentage points to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05, with rural poverty declining by 8.0 percentage points to 33.8 per cent from 41.8 per cent and urban poverty declining by 4.8 percentage points to 20.9 per cent from 25.7 per cent during the period.

This has been arrived at by updating the Tendulkar Committee report of the state wise urban poverty lines of 2004-05 for 2009-10, based on implicit price rise during the 5-year period.  The state wise rural-urban price differential in 2009-10 has been applied on state specific urban poverty lines to get state specific rural poverty lines, the report said. Accordingly, poverty ratio in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand has declined by about 10 percentage points and more. On the other hand, poverty ratios in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland increased in 2009-10. Some of the bigger states such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have shown marginal declines in poverty ratios, particularly in rural areas.