India's poverty will fall by 29% within 2015: UN report

The UN Millennium Development Goals Report predicts that India's poverty rate will be drop from 51% to 22% in the next four years. By 2015, As many as 320 million people in India and China are expected to come out of extreme poverty. Those living on less than $1.25 a day are considered poor.

"In Southern Asia, however, only India, where the poverty rate is projected to fall from 51% in 1990 to about 22% in 2015, is on track to cut poverty in half by the 2015 target date," the UN report said.

However Southern Asia continues to delay in terms of progress in the nutrition, sanitation and gender equality.

According to the report the number of people living in extreme poverty both in India & China between 1990 and 2005 declined by about 455 million, and additional 320 million people are expected to come out poverty by 2015.

 UN World Food Programme's representative and country director Mihoko Tamamura told media, "Despite impressive economic growth in India in the last few years, inequalities persist among people based on class, gender and cast."

 "If India does not meet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the world will not..." she adds.