India is way off achieving targets with regard to poverty reduction, child health, infant mortality and sanitation in urban and rural areas, ''The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007'', jointly produced by the Asian Development Bank, the UN Development Programme and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, ESCAP, said.

India, "with a 2004 poverty rate of 34 per cent has travelled less than half the distance to its 2015 target. Since India''s subsequent economic growth has been more rapid, the country could see a faster decline in poverty," the report said.

The country, the report said, has also not made any progress towards achieving targets relating to carbon dioxide emissions and reduction of CFC consumption.

India, however, has achieved the targets with regard to primary enrolment, controlling the incidence of HIV and TB and improving forest cover.

The report indicates that India is on way to achieve targets with regard to education, especially girls education at primary and secondary levels.

The report said an ambitious programme to reduce poverty and provide adequate social services for all citizens by 2015 is unlikely to be met in full by any developing country in the Asia-Pacific region.

While progress has been made on combating poverty, it has been coupled with a troubling increase in economic inequality, said the report on the UN''s Millennium Development Goals.

However, the number of people living in extreme poverty in the region is likely to be cut in half by 2015, it said.

The region - home to 60 per cent of the world''s population - had more than 1 billion people living on less than $1 day in 1990, but that number has now dropped to 641 million, said the report.

China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today, the report said. But other countries were lagging behind, among them the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In many countries, the poorest 20 per cent of the population have seen their share of national income drop steeply and economic inequality has risen in 14 of the 20 countries in the region, the report said. Nepal and China experienced the largest increase in income gaps.
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