Almost half of Orissas population is poor,with 46.37 per cent of the people in the state living below poverty line. On the other hand,insurgency-hit Jammu and Kashmir is the richest where only 5 out of every 100 are officially poor. The assessments based on daily calorie-intake found that people in Orissa were most deprived followed by Bihar,Jharkhand and Chattisgarh,with the below poverty line population hovering over 40 per cent in each of these states,Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs V Narayansamy told the Upper House on Thursday in written reply. Chandigarh and Punjab were among the better performers with only 7.07 per cent and 8.41 living below the poverty line. According to the latest available estimates based on large sample survey data on household consumer expenditure,27.5 per cent people were living below the poverty line.In rural areas the poverty ratio was estimated as 28.3 per cent whereas in urban areas it was 25.7 per cent, Narayansamy said. A number of poverty alleviation programmes,including National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS),Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana,Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and Swarna Jayanti Sheri Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY) are being implemented by the governemnt,he said. However,he added,During the last two years - 2007-08 and 2008-09,the states like Arunachal Pradesh,Bihar,J&K,Madhya Pradesh,Manipur,Meghalaya,Nagaland,Sikkim and West Bengal were not able to achieve the targets.."
