Kerala declares itself India’s first ‘extreme poverty-free’ state

Kerala has officially been declared an “extreme poverty-free state”, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Saturday. With this, it became the first state in the country to make such a declaration.

During a special session of the Assembly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader said that the celebration of the 69th anniversary of the state’s formation marked the birth of a new era for Kerala, The Hindu reported.

However, the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front rejected the declaration made by the Left Democratic Front government, describing it as “pure fraud”, The Times of India reported. The UDF also boycotted the special session.

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1.90, or around Rs 170, per person per day. However, India’s Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index also takes into account several factors such as nutrition, housing, sanitation, education and access to basic services.

In 2023, the NITI Aayog’s Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index report stated that only 0.55% of the population in Kerala was multidimensionally poor, The Times of India reported. This was the lowest in the country.

Vijayan’s declaration on Saturday came about four years after the state government launched the Extreme Poverty Alleviation Project in 2021 and identified 64,006 families as “extremely poor”, the Hindustan Times reported.

These families were made the beneficiaries of a project to eliminate extreme poverty in the state.

In the Assembly, the chief minister...

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