A Planning Commission report, released on Tuesday, has revealed wide disparities in poverty rates among states of India.

According to the report, Chhattisgarh has the highest number of poor people, with 39.93 per cent of its population living under the line of poverty.

On the other hand, Goa reported the lowest number of poor people, with 5.09 per cent of its population living under the line of poverty.

Bihar continues to be among the states where more a third (33.74 per cent) of people are still in the clutches of poverty. In Gujarat, 16.63 people were living under poverty in financial year 2011-12.

However, average poverty rate in the country slipped to 22 per cent in 2011-12, considerably down from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 and 29.8 per cent in 2009-10.

The Planning Commission report said, "During the 11-year period, the average decline in the poverty ratio was 0.74 percentage points per year. It accelerated to 2.18 per cent per year in the (next) seven year period."

The fresh statistics shows that the absolute number of the poor in the country slipped from 407.1 million in the financial year 2004-05 to 269.3 in 2011-12.

But, economists argued that rate of decline in poverty would have been slower if the survey had compiled figures from 2012-13. Even so, the steep decline in the number of people living in poverty, as stated by the report, is expected to help the UPA government claim that its economic policies are working.