Al Ngullie
Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 19
The state of Nagaland has more than four lakh people who are living under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) index, says a Central government survey report that was undertaken for the year 2010 and made available today. The report said poverty had increased in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland in 2010. The population of Nagaland is provisionally 19.81 Lakhs according to the Census 2011.
Press Information Bureau released the report of the Tendulkar Committee under the head of the Planning Commission of India. A copy of the data was obtained here today. The report was derived from quantity and value data collected in household consumer expenditure surveys for computing and updating the poverty lines, states the PIB circular. The Tendulkar Committee developed a methodology using implicit prices for estimating state-wise poverty lines.
A copy of the statistics in the report shows that the monthly per capita of Nagaland’s population in both the urban and rural areas does not show much variance and difference. In the state’s rural areas, the monthly per capita was Rs. 1016.8 and while in the urban areas the monthly per capita was Rs. 1147.6
The number and percentage of population below-poverty-line was also given in the report. In the rural areas of Nagaland there are about 2.8 lakhs (19.3% of persons/population). Interestingly, the poverty index in terms of percentage was higher in the urban areas: There are 1.4 lakhs of BPL persons living in the urban areas, making up a percentage of 25.0% of persons/population. The total came to 20.9% of persons or 4.1 lakhs BPL people living in both rural and urban areas of Nagaland.
The report also showed the level of poverty for social groups such as Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled castes. The findings showed that in the rural areas, Scheduled Tribes had the highest level of poverty (47.4%), followed by Scheduled Castes at 42.3% and Other Backward Castes at (31.9%), against 33.8% for all classes. In the urban areas, SCs were at 34.1% followed by STs at 30.4% and OBC at 24.3% against 20.9% for all classes.
Interestingly, Christians in the urban areas had the lowest number of the poor. In the section for ‘poverty among religious groups’ the report said Sikhs have the lowest Head Count Ration (HCR) in rural areas (11.9%) of the poor whereas in the urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion (12.9%) of poor.
In rural areas, the HCR for Muslims is very high in states such as Assam (53.6%), Uttar Pradesh (44.4%), West Bengal (34.4%) and Gujarat (31.4%). In urban areas, the poverty ratio at all-India level is highest for Muslims (33.9%). Similarly, for urban areas the poverty ratio is high for Muslims in states such as Rajasthan (29.5%), Uttar Pradesh (49.5%), Gujarat (42.4%), Bihar (56.5%) and West Bengal (34.9%).
