Breaking the chain: Kerala’s fight to erase extreme poverty

A mass grassroots-level multidimensional initiative to root out extreme poverty, the Extreme Poverty Eradication Project seeks to ensure that no person remains “extremely poor” and is left behind in the state’s development trajectory

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Four years ago, at just 24, Remya P’s life seemed to be falling apart. She was a widow, a cancer patient, and a mother of two small children with no job and no safe place to call home.

Living in Chavara village in Kerala’s southern Kollam district, she faced daily struggles. Her fight was not just against the disease, but also against joblessness, the constant worry of how to pay for treatment and keep a roof over her family’s head.

Her fortunes changed when local panchayat authorities came to know about her plight. They identified her as a beneficiary of the state government’s Extreme Poverty Eradication Project (EPEP), a scheme designed to help those in the most dire circumstances.

Today, she is a cancer survivor. She has a steady job working at a panchayat helpdesk and, crucially, her family now lives securely in a house provided by the government's LIFE housing programme.