Extreme Poverty-Free Kerala: Achievement or Premature Claim?

 

Extreme Poverty-Free Kerala: Achievement or Premature Claim?

– V.R. Ajith Kumar

On 1 November 2025, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan declared that Kerala has become an “extreme poverty-free” state. According to the National Multidimensional Poverty Index released by NITI Aayog in 2023, only 0.55% of individuals in Kerala were classified as extremely poor. The state’s Extreme Poverty Eradication Project, launched in 2021, gained momentum after identifying 1,03,099 individuals across 64,006 families who required focused intervention. Based on the core indicators of food, shelter, income, and health, the assessment found an average of 35 extreme-poverty families in each panchayat and around 10 families per municipal ward. These families were supported through a coordinated effort involving local self-government institutions, Kudumbashree, government departments and employees, and community participation.

The project offered houses to the homeless, land-plus-house to those who had neither, livelihood options to those without income, and palliative and free healthcare support to those medically vulnerable. The government itself highlighted two examples. In one case, a visually-impaired couple without land was helped when the sister agreed to build a house on family land — but the brother living outside Kerala also needed to consent. The government system and community traced him, brought him back, secured the consent, and constructed the home. In another instance, a man who had returned from the Gulf, and once started a gold shop but later fell into destitution after business failure and family breakdown, was supported by the project to restart his livelihood. These examples show that at least a section of the extremely poor have been financially and emotionally rehabilitated.

Kerala is never short of controversies. This time, it is the state’s own socio-economic experts who have triggered the debate. Their question is simple: they agree that Kerala has high human development and strong welfare systems, and that the intention to eradicate extreme poverty is good — but the Government must explain the basis on which these extremely poor households were identified. Technically, this doubt is valid. Their argument is that such declarations gain legitimacy only when they are supported by surveys conducted by constitutional or statutory bodies such as the Planning Board or the State Statistical Commission, and verified by an independent expert group. That is a fair point. 

Experts also point out that Kerala had already identified destitute families in 2002 through a survey which led to the Ashraya project. According to the scheme — which still continues — around 1.5 lakh families are marked as destitute. This was reflected even in the previous year’s Economic Survey. If so, experts ask — are they not ‘extremely poor’?

Further, there are 5,91,194 Antyodaya Anna Yojana (yellow ration card) holders — the lowest economic category in the PDS system. In that context, even if the figures quoted by critics are statistically right, it still remains comforting that 64,006 families have moved to a better living condition. Helping even one family to rise is valuable. Not all things should be reduced to numerical argument alone — some decisions are humanitarian.

These steps may inspire other states, and may eventually lead even the Union Government to adopt similar structured interventions. One truth remains — poverty or extreme poverty cannot be permanently defined by any single date. Kerala can only say that based on the 2021 survey data collection, those identified families are now free from extreme poverty. Even then, this is undeniably a commendable milestone.

From now on, the priority must be prevention. The state should ensure that no family falls back into extreme poverty. For this, a periodic survey — once in six months — using the now-established machinery would be essential, so that new cases can be identified and supported immediately.

Kerala is a land where controversies never end. Let the debate continue on one side — but good work must continue on the other. And the government, which once fell into the trap of education experts and withdrew from implementing the National Education Policy, must be careful not to fall into a similar trap created by economists.