Analysis of the regional pattern of poverty in India reveals a number of spatial poverty traps, characterised by low levels of geographical capital and social-political marginalisation. Prima facie, these include vast tracts of dryland regions in the western-southern regions, and forestbased economies in the central-eastern regions. Apparently, poverty as reflected in the official statistics, depicts a rather contrary scenario with dryland regions having lower incidence of poverty despite their adverse agro-climatic conditions vis-à-vis forest-based regions. This could be largely due to the relatively more diverse and developed market economies, out-migration as an important livelihood strategy and the favourable agrarian conditions with better rights over land and other natural resources. Apparently, all these factors are missing in forestbased economies. This paper analyses the nature and causes of chronic poverty in the two sets of regions in a comparative framework.