[News] Left-ruled Kerala becomes the first Indian state to eradicate extreme poverty

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/11/03/left-ruled-kerala-becomes-the-first-indian-state-to-eradicate-extreme-poverty/> 



  Left-ruled Kerala becomes the first Indian state to eradicate extreme
  poverty

Abdul Rahman
November 3, 2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Left-ruled-Kerala-becomes-the-first-Indian-state-to-eradicate-extreme-poverty-1536x864.jpeg

Kerala's LDF government celebrates the eradication of extreme poverty in 
the state. Photo: Pinarayi Vijayan

On Saturday, November 1, India’s southern state of Kerala officially 
declared itself free of extreme poverty. This makes the left-ruled state 
the first and only state in the country to achieve such a milestone.

Announcing the achievement during a session of the state’s legislative 
assembly, left leader and Chief Minister of the state Pinarayi Vijayan 
called it 
<https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/kerala-declared-free-from-extreme-poverty-first-indian-state-to-do-so/article70228620.ece#google_vignette>a 
“historic and proud moment” for the state and its people and hoped that 
“our experiments will become a model that states in the country can 
benefit from.”

India has the world’s largest population living in extreme poverty, as 
per the data released by the World Bank last year. 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/17/un-report-says-1-1-billion-people-living-in-acute-poverty>

“Kerala has etched a new chapter in history—erasing extreme poverty to 
become the first place in India and the second in the world to achieve 
this milestone,”John Brittas, member of India’s parliament from the 
Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on X 
<https://x.com/JohnBrittas/status/1984851132834070652>.

In February 2021, China became the first country 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/02/27/china-declares-end-of-absolute-poverty-in-the-country-a-decade-ahead-of-the-un-schedule/>in 
the world to announce the end of extreme poverty, a decade ahead of the 
UN schedule under its sustainable goals.

On Saturday, Chinese ambassador to India Xu Feihong also congratulated 
<https://x.com/China_Amb_India/status/1984542426816528447>Kerala’s 
government for its achievement, saying “to eliminate poverty is the 
common mission of humanity.”


      *From long-term policies to micro planning*

After being elected to power for the second time in a row in 2021, the 
Pinarayi-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government proclaimed that it 
would eradicate extreme poverty in the state by the end of its term.

In May 2021, the LDF government launched the Extreme Poverty Eradication 
Project (EPEP). The project 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/05/26/communist-led-kerala-is-eradicating-extreme-poverty/>had 
initially identified over 100,000 households as extremely poor. However, 
after the final analysis on the basis of access to food, income, 
shelter, and healthcare the number of households in extreme poverty came 
down to 64,006.

In the last four years extensive targeted attempts were made to provide 
sustained access to whichever element a particular family was lacking 
among these 64,006 families. This involved different government agencies 
and local self government bodies across the state.

In April of this year 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/16/communist-led-kerala-soon-to-become-indias-first-state-free-of-extreme-poverty/>, 
after declaring Dharmadam (his own constituency) the first to be free 
from extreme poverty in the state, Vijayan had announced that by the 
state formation day on November 1 the state will finally achieve its 
goal set four years ago.


      *Socialist policies deliver*

Kerala, which has mostly hilly terrain and a very high population 
density was once one of the poorest states in India with close to 60% of 
its population living in poverty.

Due to long-term welfare and development policies based on socialist 
distribution, such as land reforms, decentralization, high social 
expenditure on health and education, a robust public distribution 
system, among others adopted by the successive left governments in the 
state, the percentage of poor decreased drastically to just over 11% in 
2011-12, when the last pan-India census was held.

The figure has been substantially lowered even further in the 15 years 
since then.

According to the central government’s multidimensional poverty index 
released in 2021, Kerala had the least multidimensional poverty among 
the Indian states, with less than 1% of its population (0.7%) identified 
as poor.

Kerala’s achievement is a result of the sustained efforts of successive 
left governments and their policies, claimed Thomas Issac, former 
finance minister and a leader of the CPI(M).

“From 60% poverty in 1973, Kerala declares itself free from extreme 
poverty. This is the real Kerala story of land reforms, increase in 
wages, universal education, healthcare and social security. Finally, 4 
years of micro planning to lift 64,006 from extreme poverty” Issac said 
in a post on X. <https://x.com/drthomasisaac/status/1984447425579511830>

Vijayan also acknowledged the role of long-term policies in achieving 
zero extreme poverty in the state.

“The process of eradicating extreme poverty is a continuation of the 
steps taken earlier for universal public distribution system and for the 
eradication of landlessness and homelessness. Kerala has made remarkable 
progress in the sustainable development index envisioned by the UN by 
eradicating extreme poverty,” he said on Saturday.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20251103/d30fa687/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Left-ruled-Kerala-becomes-the-first-Indian-state-to-eradicate-extreme-poverty-1536x864.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 212011 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20251103/d30fa687/attachment-0001.jpeg>