proportionately smaller tribal populations (5 and 9 percent of the total, respectively) than some of the northern states with high concentrations.

Among the large states, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan in that order have proportionately the largest concentrations of ST populations. The ST constitute 20, 17 and 14 percent of their respective populations. Some of the medium-size states, of course, have proportionately even larger concentrations of the ST populations. These include Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa with the ST forming 30, 29 and 22 percent of their populations, respectively.

Since the traditional exclusion of the SC has meant that they began with a very high incidence of abject poverty and low levels of literacy, states with high proportions of them also face an uphill task in combating poverty. Even so, since the SC populations are not physically isolated from the mainstream of the economy, there is greater potential for the benefits of growth reaching them than the ST. This is illustrated, for example, by the emergence of some rupee millionaires among the SC but not the ST during the recent high-growth phase (Dehejia and Panagariya 2012).

Once again, at 9 percent, Kerala happens to have proportionately the smallest SC population among the 17 states listed in Table 9. Among the largest 10 states, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in that order have the highest concentrations of the SC populations. Among the medium-size states, Punjab, Haryana and Orissa in that order have proportionately the largest SC populations.

The SC and ST populations together account for as much as 40 and 35 percent of the total state population in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, respectively. At the other extreme, in Kerala these groups together account for only 10 percent of the population. These differences mean that ceteris paribus, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan face a significantly more uphill battle in combating poverty than Kerala.

The ST populations also differ from the SC in that they are far more heavily concentrated in rural than urban areas. Table 10 illustrates this point. In 2009-10, 89 percent of the ST population was classified as rural. The corresponding figure was 80 for the SC, 75 for the OBC and 60 for FC.

**Table 10** : Distribution of national population across social groups and regions (percent)

|Region|ST|SC|OBC|FC|NS|Total(million)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Rural|89|80|75|60|69|761|
|Urban|11|20|25|40|31|282|
|Total|100|100|100|100|100|1043|

An implication of the small ST population in the urban areas in all states and in both rural and urban areas in a large number of states is that the random selection of households results in a relatively small number of ST households being sampled in urban areas nearly everywhere and in both rural and urban areas in many states. The problem is especially severe in many of the smallest states in which the total sample size is small in the first place. A small ST sample translates into a large error in the associated estimate of the poverty ratio. We will present the poverty estimates in all states and regions as long as positive group is sampled. Nevertheless, we caution the reader to the possibility of errors in Table 11 associated with the number of ST households in the 2009-10 survey.

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