Kerala’s success in eliminating multidimensional poverty offers valuable lessons for Odisha to achieve poverty-free villages through health, education, and inclusive development
Goutam Saha, Lipsa Mohapatra & Sulagna Saha
Odisha Vision 2036 and 2047 aims for universal education and healthcare, poverty-free villages through inclusive development. Odisha is one of the top four states in India, which has reduced the poverty of its people at the fastest rate during the last few years. However, according to the National Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index 2023, Odisha still has 15.68 per cent of its population who are multidimensional poor, i.e., deprived in health, education, and standard of living. This is a more sophisticated and inclusive approach to measuring poverty rather than the World Bank’s method of measuring poverty of earning less than 3$ per day. In the last month, the Kerala Government announced that there is no multidimensional poor in the state. It was quite a possible achievement for Kerala, which had only 0.55 per cent of people who were extremely/multidimensional poor, reported by NITI Aayog in 2023. There are some debates on the process of identifying the extremely poor people by the state; however, nobody denies Kerala’s excellent track record on eradicating poverty through superior performance in human capital development.
Kerala’s success is not merely a matter of state pride; it offers a roadmap that other Indian states would do well to study. It may help Odisha to reduce its multidimensional poverty to zero in a faster way. Technically speaking, Multi-Dimensional Poverty has three major deprivations to measure poverty: healthcare, education and standard of living. Health deprivation is measured through child nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, and maternal health. Education is measured through years of schooling and school attendance. Standard of living is measured through factors like cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, and assets. In many of the parameters, Kerala can compare well with many European countries. Now, let us study the reasons for Kerala’s stunning progress in ameliorating poverty. Sustained Investment in Education and Health: Kerala’s foundations were laid well before Independence. The princely states of Travancore and Cochin invested heavily in universal, science-based education, particularly for marginalised communities. This early emphasis created a culture of learning that endured. Kerala also made its land reform to address poverty through the Land Reform Act, 1963. Over the last 25 years, Kerala has remained among the top Indian states in terms of the proportion of its budget spent on education and healthcare. Odisha did not compare well in terms of spending on healthcare and education despite its challenging situation.
Odisha has rarely featured in the top five in spending on healthcare and education. Importantly, both major political coalitions in Kerala—the Left Democratic Front and its long-standing rival, the United Democratic Front—have maintained this spending priority, regardless of who was in power. It is not only government spending, but even Kerala’s poorest households spend more per capita on education than those in any other Indian state. The result of higher spending in these two sectors is a textbook validation of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s human development theory: good health and education expand people’s real freedoms. Kerala’s workforce is among the most mobile and employable in India, at home and abroad. Today, Malayali migrants send back the highest per-capita remittances in the country, significantly strengthening the state’s economy. Kerala’s per-capita income is well ahead of Odisha, positioned in the top 10 and quite comparable to historically rich states like Gujarat. This affluence creates a better culture of delivery of quality education and healthcare. For example, even in remote villages, government-supported libraries are active and well-stocked. World literature, translated into Malayalam, is widely available.
Kerala’s success is not only about higher expenditure—it is about smarter expenditure. At the primary level, Kerala has the highest proportion of private primary schools in India, many of which receive government support. These schools—often run by religious or community organisations—compete actively for students, which raises quality. The government, meanwhile, subsidises student transportation, enabling families to choose better schools rather than merely the nearest ones. In higher education, the state typically funds around 50 per cent of institutional costs, with the rest mobilised by universities through students’ fees, research grants, alumni contributions, and domestic and international funding. This has made universities more accountable, less bureaucratic, and more focused on academic excellence. Kerala has thus achieved a rare balance between left-leaning social policy and competitive market mechanisms
Perhaps Kerala’s most underrated asset is a politically conscious electorate. For decades, a good percentage of voters have prioritised a candidate’s personal integrity and social work over rigid party loyalty. Governments are rarely re-elected for consecutive terms. This regular alternation of power has prevented the politicisation and decay of public institutions such as schools, hospitals, anganwadis, cooperatives, and local governments. Citizen action is not symbolic. In a locality of Malappuram, a municipal town of Kerala, residents once refused to vote unless politicians returned a playground that had been appropriated for rallies. The playground was restored. Many IAS officers also reported the power of assertive communities in Kerala.
Kerala’s Extreme Poverty Eradication Program (EPEP), 2021-2025, used the power of local community organisations like Kudumbashree (a 3-tiered massive government-supported organisation for women’s empowerment and poverty eradication), ASHA workers, to identify 64,046 extremely poor households. After identification, these extremely poor family members get tailor-made interventions, like being linked to employment under MGNREGA, cooperative credit, identity documentation, and sustainable income sources, interventions like treatment for an ailing family member, or skill development for higher income, etc. After proper follow-up, the government claimed on the 1st November, 2025, these 64046 family members got rid of extreme multi-dimensional poverty. There has been debate about the methods of identifying extremely poor family members, or the absence of a third party to audit the data, as there should be. But Kerala’s intention and performance in fighting against poverty are really commendable. According to official data from 2023, only 0.5 per cent of Kerala’s population remains extremely poor—the lowest in India.
Given this baseline, Kerala was uniquely positioned to eliminate extreme poverty—and it seized the opportunity. Odisha also has spectacular community-led achievements in disaster management, producing and marketing millet through Millet Mission, empowering women through Mission Shakti. With the proper political will and commitment, Odisha can also be a state with no extreme poverty by 2036. However, it needs more allocation in health and education and social security schemes, with a smarter way of spending the allotted money and an alert and demanding citizenry to channelise the government’s resources and energy for the real development of the people of Odisha. The mindful citizenry also makes the government alert to not destroying ecology for the sake of development and creates more jobs in the state, which was a limitation of the Kerala model of development.
To make poverty less in Odisha in a speedier way, we also need a political consensus like in Kerala both the LDF and UDF governments of Kerala maintained higher spending on health and education for the state. Recently, we witnessed a political consensus of Odisha’s legislators of BJP, BJD, and Congress on rewarding themselves with approximately a three times salary hike. We also expect the same time of consensus and unified efforts to make Odisha a no extreme poverty state by 2036.
(The authors are the faculty members of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bhubaneswar. Opinions are Personal)
