One way to motivate the impact of natural resource availability is to estimate whether populations in mineral rich areas have emerged out of poverty better than other areas.
To this end, poverty trends for the mineral-rich states with other states is contrasted between 1993-94 and 2011-12, the latest year for which NSSO data is available.
At first blush, the mineral-rich states seem relatively successful. Their poverty ratio fell by around 31 percentage points over nearly two decades, compared with 28.5 percentage points in the other states.
Viewed from a different perspective, however, the mineral states seem less successful. In particular, the Scheduled Tribes ....
