Defined to exclude

Kerala has declared itself free of 'extreme poverty', even as people employed in the informal sector, tribal populations and coastal communities continue to live in extremely impoverished conditions

- KA SHAJI

OUR WAGES are ₹420 a day. During the four-five monsoon months, we cannot work and do not get paid. But as per the government's list, we are not poor because we have jobs," says R Selvi, a 36-year-old tea estate worker in Meppadi town of Kerala's Wayanad district.

On November 1, Kerala announced that it was free of "extreme poverty", becoming India's first state to claim the status. It did so on the basis of extensive surveys to identify and rehabilitate those facing extreme poverty. Selvi, who does not have a secure source of income and lives in a 10 square metre room built by the British at the estate, was not considered extremely poor under the state's Extreme Poverty Eradication Programme (EPEP).

Under EPEP, the state government conducted extensive surveys with the help of municipal wards and non-profits and identified 64,006 households (103,099 individuals) as extremely poor. After verification, a total of 59,277 households were "rehabilitated" under micro-plans that connected them to welfare schemes, as per the EPEP dashboard.

Kerala's achievements in nearly all human development indices are noteworthy and surpass the national average. For instance, NITI Aayog's Multidimensional Poverty Index puts the state's poverty at just 0.55 per cent, compared to the national average of 15 per cent.

How did the state then leave out people like Selvi? Experts say declaration of eradicating extreme poverty has more to do with poverty definition than reality.