When the enumerators for identifying the extremely poor families in Kerala went around earlier this year for the survey as part of the government programme to alleviate poverty, they came across many people living totally cut off from society, unaware of the availability of support systems.
One of them was living alone in a country boat at Anchuthengu in Thiruvananthapuram district, while some were found living on the streets.
Out of the 64,006 families identified as extremely poor, 43,850 (constituting 68.51% of the total) are single-member families. Two panchayats in the State - Kumarapuram in Alappuzha and Kallar in Kasaragod - did not have a single family which could be classified as extremely poor, while 3,500 wards across the State also share the same distinction. Around 1,400 persons from LGBTQ categories have been identified as extremely poor.
The Local Self-Government department is set to prepare individual micro-plans for each of the 64,006 families/individuals in June. These micro-plans will be linked to the annual plans of the respective local body, with constant monitoring of the improvement in their situation.
The implementation is expected to start by July, with an aim to achieve the sustainable development goals of zero hunger and no poverty, years before the deadline of 2030. The progress will be constantly monitored through a dashboard, updated real-time from the ground.
According to top officials involved in the process, absolute poverty is negligible in the State. Most of the cases identified are of relative poverty, which can be addressed. The extremely poor were identified based on four parameters - food, health, income and housing. Some of the families were pushed into poverty due to health issues, which drained all their savings. Quite a few who were living alone were also found to have mental health issues.
"The whole process of identifying was done in a participatory model, which was made possible by Kerala's strong grass-root volunteer network and local administration. Focus group discussions, consisting of ward members, Kudumbashree members, volunteers and others were held in each of the more than 19,000 wards to prepare the first draft list of 1,18,000 families. In the second phase, enumerators, who were working on a voluntary basis, did a ground-level survey, using which the list was narrowed down to 77,000. The final list of 64,006 was prepared after approval from all the grama sabhas. This is a first of its kind process in the country to identify the extremely poor," an official said.
Malappuram district has the largest number of extremely poor with 8,553 families, while Kottayam with 1,071 families is last in the list. A large percentage of the extremely poor (81.24%) are concentrated in the rural areas.
