Kerala Moves to Become India’s First State Free From Extreme Poverty

On 1st November 2025, the southern state of Kerala is poised to declare itself free of “extreme poverty”, marking a landmark moment in Indian social development. According to announcements by the state government, fewer than 0.3 per cent of the state’s estimated 64.4 lakh families were identified as living in extreme poverty, and nearly all have been brought into welfare programmes under the state’s targeted scheme. 

What has happened ?

In 2021, Kerala’s Left-Democratic-Front government launched the Extreme Poverty Eradication Programme (EPEP) (also referred to as the Athidaridrya Nirmarjana Project) with the explicit goal of locating and uplifting every household experiencing severe deprivation. 

 Under the programme:

• An exhaustive survey identified 64,006 families statewide as living in extreme poverty — defined by deprivation in areas such as nutritious food, safe housing, healthcare, stable income and access to basic services.

• Individual “micro-plans” were drawn up for each family, responding to specific deficits (for example housing repairs, land provision, healthcare, identity documentation, livelihood support).

• As of mid-2025, official data indicated that over 90 per cent of the target families had been “rehabilitated” under these plans, positioning the state for a formal declaration of eradication by 1 November.

• The state’s achievement is backed by national benchmarking: the NITI Aayog 2023 report places Kerala’s multidimensional poverty head-count ratio at about 0.55 per cent — the lowest among all Indian states.
  
  

Why is Kerala declaring this milestone ?

The declaration is rooted in Kerala’s longstanding welfare-state model, which combines high social spending, land reforms, strong public health and education systems, and decentralised local governance. By launching EPEP, the government aimed to go a step further: to identify and support the few families left behind, invisible even to generous welfare schemes, and ensure no one remained in a state of “extreme deprivation”.
The state government sees this as a rights-based, people-centred governance achievement: “The primary responsibility of the government is to improve the quality of life of the people,” said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. 

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What is “extreme poverty” and how to curb it?

“Extreme poverty” in this context goes beyond simply low income. It refers to households deprived across multiple dimensions: food insecurity, unsafe or no housing, lack of healthcare access, absence of income or livelihood, missing identity documents, and lack of basic services like electricity or water. International standards (for example by the World Bank) emphasise that poverty is not just absence of income, but lack of capability to realise one’s full human potential.

To effectively curb such poverty, the following measures are widely recognised:

• Robust public welfare infrastructure: universal health, education and housing.

• Targeted identification of the “invisible poor” who fall outside normal welfare nets.

• Tailored micro-plans for each household, addressing specific needs rather than one-size-fits-all.

• Strong local governance and community participation in the identification and delivery process.

• Monitoring, evaluation and continuous support to prevent relapse into deprivation.
  

Kerala’s approach reflects all of the above, offering a potentially replicable model for other states.

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Challenges and outlook

While the government’s announcement is significant, observers caution that “eradicated” does not mean every hardship has vanished. Some tribal and marginalised groups claim that hunger, homelessness and landlessness persist in pockets despite the official declaration.

Sustaining the gains will require continued vigilance — ensuring that families remain connected to livelihoods, maintaining public services, and identifying emerging vulnerabilities. The true test will be whether the households earmarked as “rehabilitated” do not slip back into deprivation.

Kerala’s declaration of being free from extreme poverty marks a milestone achievement: through a clearly defined timeframe, targeted Household-by-Household plans, and delivery of services, the state is formally claiming to have uplifted nearly every family previously experiencing severe deprivation. For the Indian audience, this demonstrates how multidimensional definitions of poverty and locally implemented action plans can combine to deliver tangible outcomes. Yet, the journey ahead lies in maintaining, sustaining and extending those outcomes — so that the poorest truly gain security and dignity in their lives. [Rh/MY/VP]

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