Kerala declared itself free of extreme poverty on Saturday, becoming the first state in India to do so. The declaration was made formally on November 1 by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at a special session of the state assembly marking Kerala's Formation Day.
As per a report by the Hindustan Times, this declaration follows the successful implementation of the Extreme Poverty Alleviation Project taken up by the LDF government in 2021, which identified 64,006 families as “extremely poor” and supported families suffering from severe deprivation throughout the state.
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Four-year project targeted over 64,000 families
According to the report, the minister of local self-governments, M.B. Rajesh, said the programme was devised following a NITI Aayog study that found Kerala had the lowest poverty rate in the country-just 0.7%. The project provided focused interventions to lift these families out of extreme poverty.
As reported earlier by the Hindustan Times, on October 22, Rajesh said at a press briefing, “We understood that it was important to reach out to this population, however small it is, and meet their needs as part of a dedicated programme. Ground-level surveys were done in the first phase to identify such families based on indicators like access to food, health, housing and livelihood. As part of the surveys, 1,03,099 individuals from 64,006 families were identified as extremely poor.”
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Opposition dismisses government's claim
The opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front, however, rejected the government's declaration and termed the decision to be "pure fraud." UDF legislators staged a walkout from the assembly in protest, PTI reported.
Opposition leader V.D. Satheesan accused the government of misleading the public and said that this announcement violated House procedures. “So, we cannot join in that and are completely boycotting the session,” he said.
Reacting to the criticism, Chief Minister Vijayan said, "We only say what we can implement. We have implemented what we had said. That is our reply to the opposition leader."
