Kerala becomes India’s first state to eradicate extreme poverty

As Kerala celebrates its 69th Formation Day, the state is marking a historic milestone - becoming the first in India to eradicate extreme poverty.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will make the formal declaration today, crowning a four-year-long campaign that has lifted over 64,000 families, or more than 100, 000 individuals, from the depths of deprivation.

"This is not just an achievement for the government but a triumph of the people of Kerala,” said Vijayan on the eve of Kerala Piravi. "A small state with limited resources has shown that human dignity and social justice can guide development. We have etched a historic moment in golden letters,” Vijayan said.

The declaration follows an ambitious programme launched soon after the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government returned to power in 2021. At its very first cabinet meeting, the government decided that its primary mission would be to eradicate extreme poverty - defined as severe deprivation in four basic areas: food, housing, income, and health. What followed was a massive, ground-level exercise that blended policy innovation with grassroots participation. More than 14 lakh people - from ASHA workers and Kudumbashree members to local government officials and volunteers - were mobilised to identify and assist families living in conditions of destitution.

According to official data, the surveys initially identified 118,309 families across 1,032 local bodies. After multiple levels of verification and community validation, 64,006 families comprising 103,099 people were confirmed as living in extreme poverty. For each of these families, the government developed a micro-plan - a first-of-its-kind initiative in India - detailing short-, medium, and long-term interventions.

The plans addressed both immediate needs and structural challenges. Families were provided with food, housing, healthcare, and livelihood opportunities.

Over 21,000 households received essential documents such as ration and Aadhaar cards, while 29,427 were offered medical care and insurance. Three meals a day were ensured for more than 20,000 individuals through community kitchens, and nearly 4,000 families were given new homes. Another 5,651 families received up to ₹200,000 each to renovate existing homes.

Minister for Local Self-Government MB Rajesh, who oversaw the initiative, said the mission represented "the spirit of decentralised governance that Kerala is known for.” "Every family had a unique plan, created with their participation.

This wasn’t a top-down scheme but a community-driven process where local bodies, NGOs, and citizens collaborated to lift our most marginalised neighbours”, Rajesh said. He dismissed criticism that the declaration was rushed or overstated. "We have never claimed to have eradicated poverty in general - only extreme poverty,” Rajesh clarified. "The documentation, the definitions, and the process are transparent and available in the public domain. Those who question it perhaps haven’t looked at the evidence”, the minister said.

Critics, however, have questioned both the methodology and the symbolism of the declaration. A group of economists and social thinkers, including RVG Menon, MA Oommen, and KP Kannan said the claim requires further scrutiny and independent verification.

Supporters of the initiative see it as the culmination of Kerala’s long social reform tradition. Economist and former finance minister Dr TM Thomas Isaac noted that the current achievement rests on decades of structural change. "In 1973, 60 per cent of Kerala’s population lived in poverty,” Isaac said.

"Land reforms, the rise of organised labour, and the decentralisation movement of the 1990s transformed the economic landscape. By 2023, poverty had fallen to 0.5 per cent. What remained was a small, hard-to-reach segment - the invisible poor - and this programme addressed exactly that”, he said.

The project, implemented with a budget exceeding ₹1,000 crore, was not merely a welfare drive. It represented an attempt to make rights to food, shelter, health, and dignity tangible for those left behind. Families were geo-tagged to enable continuous monitoring, and the state plans to maintain periodic reviews to prevent any relapse into destitution.