Rajya Sabha
The estimation of poverty in the country including Assam and other North Eastern States is done by the Planning Commission on the basis of Sample Survey of Consumer Expenditure of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). The poverty ratio of Assam is used for all other North Eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. According to 1999-2000 poverty estimates of Planning Commission, 94.55 lakh total rural and urban population which also includes 92.17 lakh persons of rural areas, were Below the Poverty Line in Assam which works out 36.09% of the total population and 40.04% rural population as against all India percentage of 27.09% of rural population. The reasons for higher incidence of poverty in Assam could be the lack of productive employment, migrant labour and also lack of infrastructure.
This was stated by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Chandra Sekhar Sahu in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
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(Release ID :25543)