Trends in rural poverty in india during 1973–74 to 2011–12

In this paper made an attempt to examine the trends in rural poverty in India using secondary data for the time period from 1973–74 to 2011–12. The study considers all states and union territories of India as population and seven states from high per capita income states and seven states from low per capita income states are selected as sample. For assessing poverty levels of sample states, the variables like number of rural population below poverty, percentage of rural population below poverty line and rural poverty line in rupees are taken in to consideration. Growth rates, CV analysis, f-test and t-test are applied along with descriptive statistics for the analysis. Our result shows that the trend in rural absolute poverty has been declining over a time period, but not same kind in high per capita income and low per capita income states and there is significant mean deference noticed. The incidence of rural poverty in high per capita income states and low per capita income states of India was decreasing and varied considerably during the study period. Rural poverty growth rates have fallen quickly for all high per capita income states more than 10 per cent of compound annual growth, while in all low per capita income states less than 10 per cent of compound annual growth. There is significant mean difference witnessed between high per capita income and low per capita income states in declining poverty.