Poverty increases in four NE states: Planning Commission

The North Eastern state of Assam, along with its four other sisters – Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, are the only aberrations in the latest poverty estimates of the Planning Commission, as these are the only five states in the country where poverty has been reported to have increased between 2004-05 and 2009-10. However, left-ruled state of Tripura is the silver lining as it registered an exemplary decline in poverty by 22.6 percentage points during the same period.

As per the estimates, Nagaland saw the highest rise of 12.1 percentage points in poverty between 2004-05 and 2009-10, followed by Manipur (9.2 percentage points), Mizoram (5.7 percentage points), Assam (3.5 percentage points) and Meghalaya (1 percentage point).

The Planning Commission estimates found that Assam had 37.9 per cent (116.4 lakh) population living below poverty line in 2009-10, as against 34.4 per cent (97.7 lakh) population in 2004-05.

Similarly, Meghalaya had 17.1 per cent (4.9 lakh) population in 2009-10 living under poverty line, as against 16.1 per cent (4.1 lakh) population in 2004-05. Manipur had 47.1 per cent (12.5 lakh), Mizoram had 21.1 per cent (2.3 lakh) and Nagaland 20.9 per cent (4.1 lakh) population living below poverty line in 2009-10 respectively, as against 37.9 per cent (9 lakh), 15.4 per cent (4.1 lakh) and 8.8 per cent (1.7 lakh) population in 2004-05 respectively.

Tripura saw a drastic decline in poverty between 2004-05 and 2009-10. From 40 per cent (13.4 lakh) population living below poverty line in 2004-05, poverty came down to 17.4 per cent (6.3 lakh) in 2009-10 in Tripura, which is a decline of 22.6 percentage points. Arunachal Pradesh too registered a decline in poverty during the same period. From 31.4 per cent (3.8 lakh) population living below poverty line in 2004-05, poverty came down to 25.9 per cent (3.5 lakh population) in 2009-10, which is a decline of 5.5 percentage points.

Planning Commission estimates found poverty to have declined by 7.3 percentage points from 2004-05 to 2009-10. From 37.2 per cent in 2004-05, poverty came down to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, as per Planning Commission estimates.