Discuss the trend of poverty in India

(i) During five year plans, several programmes have been introduced to alleviate poverty in India, yet there has been an increase in the number of poor persons in the country. There are about 32.1 crore persons living below poverty line in 1973-74.
(ii) It remained almost stagnant during a decade of 1973-1983 but it came down to 26 crores in 1999-2000 and 23 crores in 2004-05.
(iii) In this way, poverty in rural areas had always been on higher side as compared to urban.
. But it came down in 2004-05 in both rural and urban areas.