Kottayam first district in Kerala which is free of extreme poverty Minister Rajesh

Kottayam (Kerala), Jun 28 (PTI) Kerala Minister for Local Self Government, M B Rajesh, on Saturday declared Kottayam district as free of extreme poverty.
    Rajesh, speaking at a function held here where he made the announcement. said that Kottayam is leading the way in achieving the state government's goal of making Kerala free of extreme poverty.
    State Cooperation Minister V N Vasavan, who presided over the event, hailed the achievement and said Kottayam was probably the first district in the country to be free of extreme poverty.
    Rajesh, during his speech, said that the first decision taken by the current LDF government was to eradicate extreme poverty from the state. For this, a survey was conducted and 64,006 families were found to be living in extreme poverty, he said.
    He claimed that such an attempt had been made before only in China.
    As part of the initiative, microplans were prepared for each family and 93 per cent of the families identified in the survey have been lifted out of extreme poverty, he contended.
    He also said that other states in the country were amazed by Kerala progress in eradicating extreme poverty.
    Rajesh said the government was moving towards its goal of eradicating extreme poverty by providing houses to the homeless through the LIFE project and giving land to the landless.
    Vasavan, speaking about Kottayam's achievement, said that the district was ahead in completing the data collection process and preparing and implementing the microplans.
    He said that 903 families were identified as extremely poor in the district in the final list and 978 microplans were prepared for them in August 2022.
    As per the microplans prepared at the local self-government body level, food, medicines, palliative care, and health support services, including equipment, were made available to all the families in need, he said.
    Besides that, facilities for an income source were also provided to over 150 families, the minister said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)