Despite the proportion of the poor declining between 2004-05 and 2011-12, their gap with the rich has risen for the first time in rural areas in about 35 years and to an all-time high in urban areas.
Inequality, computed from the National Sample Survey on household consumption expenditure for 2011-12, is measured by the Gini coefficient, a measure of statistical dispersion. In rural areas, the coefficient rose to 0.28 in 2011-12 from 0.26 in 2004-05 and to an all-time high of 0.37 from 0.35 in urban areas, the figures showed. The coefficient ranges from zero to one, with zero representing perfect equality and one showing perfect inequality. Hence, the more the coefficient, the more the inequality.