Poverty is a global issue. In simple words, poverty is the lack of basic amenities. This concept has been evading probe for few decades. Question like how to define and measure poverty have been raised by different scholars from their own point of view, still leaving many chances of improvement. Till recently, poverty was assessed on the basis of income level. Many social scientists have defined poverty as a multidimensional concept rather than uni-dimensional. Poverty includes various dimensions of deprivation. The main emphasis of this study is to understand the concept and measurement of poverty as well as to focus and explore the state- level poverty in India. The state-wise poverty has been explained with regard to rural areas as well as urban areas during 1972-73 to 2011-12. The study used the poverty data from Planning Commission’s different reports, Government of India. The study explored that in the 2011-12 rural poverty was the highest in Chhattisgarh followed by Arunachal Pradesh Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar, while it was the lowest in Goa followed by Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. In Urban area, poverty was the highest Manipur, followed by Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Odessa, Nagaland and Karnataka stand above national level. In terms of combined rural and urban poverty, it was the highest in Chhattisgarh followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh and it was the lowest in Goa followed by Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Sikkim.