GNV News December 17, 2025

On November 1, 2025, Kerala, India Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan issued a statement (Note 1) announcing the complete eradication of “extreme poverty” in the state. According to the World Bank’s standard, “extreme poverty” refers to the condition of people living on less than US$3 per 1 day (Note 2). The standard used by Kerala is stricter than this and defines poverty lines across multiple dimensions.

According to the statement, this is the result of the “Extreme Poverty Eradication Project” announced in 2021. Under this project, households designated as being in poverty were identified, and individualized plans were prepared for those households. The plans had 3 phases, providing access to food and medical services, securing sustainable sources of income, and offering permanent housing. The project through which, approximately 85,000 people received free medical services; in terms of housing, about 5,000 units were renovated and an additional roughly 5,000 new units were constructed.

However, challenges remain in Kerala’s poverty situation, and opposition leaders have criticized the statement as a “complete fraud.” In fact, there are also claims that some households in “extreme poverty” were not covered by the project. Among those in “extreme poverty,” the very poorest were excluded from the project on the grounds that they already held entitlements to subsidies and food rations. Furthermore, even households that exited “extreme poverty” through the project face the risk of falling back into “extreme poverty” due to unemployment and other factors.

It is true that Kerala has a low share of people in poverty compared with other Indian states. However, some voices argue that, to completely escape “extreme poverty,” not only one-off assistance but also sustained economic policies are necessary.

Note 1 The Communist Party is in power in Kerala.

Note 2 However, the “extreme poverty” threshold is based on poverty conditions in the world’s poorest countries, and even if one is above that threshold, in some countries people may still not be able to live adequately. At GNV, insofar as data permit, we adopt as our poverty benchmark the “Ethical (moral) poverty line,” calculated based on the relationship between life expectancy and income.

Learn more about reporting on poverty → “Unreported global poverty issues“

Learn more about global poverty → “How to interpret the state of global poverty?“

Kerala Government Secretariat (Photo: Shagil Kannur / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0] )