Overview
- Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced the status in a special Assembly sitting on Kerala Piravi Day and later at a public event in Thiruvananthapuram, where he also released the EPEP report.
- The Extreme Poverty Eradication Project launched in 2021 identified and verified roughly 64,006 families for tailored interventions covering food security, housing, healthcare and livelihoods.
- Budget allocations cited include Rs 50 crore each in 2023–24 and 2024–25 and Rs 60 crore in 2025–26, with reported outputs such as 4,677 houses and land-plus-housing for 2,713 families.
- The Congress-led UDF boycotted the session, calling the claim a fraud, highlighting a reported starvation death, and questioning how it aligns with about 5.92 lakh Antyodaya Anna Yojana households.
- A group of 25 academics and public figures issued an open letter seeking the methodology and raw data for independent scrutiny, even as China’s ambassador publicly congratulated the state.