Some facts about poverty

Wealth distribution in India is fairly uneven, with the top 10% of income groups earning 33% of the income.[3] Despite significant economic progress, 1/4 of the nation's population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of $0.40/day. Official figures estimate that 27.5% [4] of Indians lived below the national poverty line in 2004-2005.[5] A 2007 report by the state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) found that 25% of Indians, or 236 million people, lived on less than 20 rupees per day[6] with most working in "informal labour sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty."[7]

for complete article go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India

Well, I would like to add few more points in addition to what Vishal has said.

India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Over the years standard of living has increased in India, which is clear from the fact of constantly incrasing number of middle class family from the time of independence till date, though this distribution is uneven in different places.

A few programs made by government to remove this uneven distributions are the National Rural Employment Programme and the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme etc. which have been very effective in fulfilling their purpose. What more is expected from government is to llok into the matter very carefully and come up with more expert ideas.

There have been sufficient number of ideas. According to me, its the implementation which is the major concern ! Major chunk of facilities doesn't reach to people. Corruption has to be blamed for that !

Between.... POVERTY THRESHOLD IN INDIA IS RS 16/DAY/PERSON ...so in future, if you hear 20% in india are below poverty line, don't assume that the other 80% are rich ! They may not have been able to manage their daily food with their earnings still they are not considered poor !