Zero Poverty Uttar Pradesh Campaign, also known as the Zero Poverty program, is an initiative by the Government of Uttar Pradesh that was rolled out on . It was announced by Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.
The aim behind the program is to identify the extremely poor families in the state and proactively channelise Direct Benefit Transfer of various departments. Under this campaign, the state has identified the poorest 10 to 25 families from each gram panchayat. These welfares included both in-kind and cash transfers like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Shramik card, a golden card under Ayushman Bharat Yojana and other pension-related schemes.
The government has announced the campaign to take place in phases and has set as the target, aiming to bring the annual income of the families to a minimum of , both from Direct Benefit Transfers and custom livelihood support for the identified poor households.
Background
Uttar Pradesh has one of the highest poverty rates in India, ranked 25th out of 28 states in 2023 in terms of multidimensional poverty by the NITI Aayog. From 2018 to 2023, 13.5 crore Indians moved out of multidimensional poverty in India, of which Uttar Pradesh alone had 3.44 crore people, the highest in the country. It has witnessed one of the steepest declines in poverty alongside states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan. Yogi Adityanath, the current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has stated that with the current rate of investment, by 2029, the nominal GDP of the state shall reach $1 trillion. Since 2017, Uttar Pradesh has experienced a significant economic turnaround, with the unemployment rate dropping from 19% to less than 3%, and per capita income rising from to .
The disparity between the western region of Uttar Pradesh compared to the rest of the state has been significant. Among the ten richest districts of the state by GDP per capita, seven are from west Uttar Pradesh - Gautam Buddha Nagar, Meerut, Etah, Agra, Amroha, Ghaziabad and Hapur. On the other hand, all of the bottom ten districts are from east Uttar Pradesh - Chandauli, Siddharthnagar, Deoria, Ballia, Pratapgarh, Jaunpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Bahraich and Balrampur. In December 2023, the Gautam Buddha Nagar district contributed to 8.91% of the state's GDP, whereas the bottom 65 districts combined contributed to less than 4%.
On , on the day of Gandhi Jayanti, Adityanath launched the Zero Poverty Program, with the aim to eradicate poverty in the state within one year, stating that Uttar Pradesh shall be the first state to do so. The initiative aimed to survey the rural poor households on four basic criteria:
Families that are homeless or live in kutcha houses Landless families who have no other option of livelihood except agriculture; Families dependent on daily wages, agricultural labour and have uncertain and irregular income; Families which lack financial resources; there is always a shortage of food and clothing in the family.
The government announced that it shall partner with corporations and leverage the corporate social responsibility fund for the same. Overall, over 20 schemes run by the state government were to be provided to such families. By the end of 2024, the state government had begun conducting surveys to identify 15 lakh extremely poor families for the scheme.
Budget In February 2025, the ninth budget session under chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the sixth session under finance minister Suresh Kumar Khanna took place. This was the first time Zero Poverty Program was discussed during a budget session. In this, the Uttar Pradesh government announced the allocation of towards the scheme, to ensure adequate availability of food and clothing, education, medicine, housing facilities and sustainable income to poor families. The government had aimed to bring the annual income of such families to at least .
As a part of the campaign, the Mukhyamantri Suposhan Yojana () was launched on . It was first launched in 8 districts, for which a budget of was presented.
For the ration delivery system, under the National Food Security Act, the state government approved a budget of on for the procurement and delivery of the ration, and for interstate coordination.
As a part of the campaign, Uttar Pradesh was granted under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana on , to build permanent houses for the poor. For the cost of the construction, 60% was paid by the central government, while 40% was paid by the state government. The state government had previously allocated to the housing schemes for families who were eligible for neither PM nor CM Awas Yojana by .
Initiatives On , the chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Kumar Singh, held a video conference with all the divisional commissioners and district magistrates of the state, urging them to identify the 25 poorest families from each gram panchayat.
Between and , the survey for 650 out of the targeted 1,037 villages had been completed, in which an average of 25 families per village were made part of the welfare schemes. In the Aligarh district, the government could identify 20,500 such families in the 12 blocks it had divided the district into for the program. Out of these, the forms for 18,526 were filled by . Similarly, over 15,000 families were also identified in the Varanasi district. In the Barabanki district, around 22,578 people were identified, of which 4,751 did not even have a ration card.
On , in the Kushinagar district, a total of 23,963 families across 980 gram panchayats were identified, against the target of 24,500 families as stated by the district panchayati raj officer Alok Kumar Priyadarshi, bringing the progress of the identification progress to 97.81%. In the Lakhimpur Kheri district, it was found out during the survey that 22,573 families do not have a permanent house. These families were prioritised for housing assistance through the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, aiming to provide them with permanent residences.
On , chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh mentioned that the data for approximately 13.57 lakh families had been collected, whereas 13.22 lakh of them had been verified. Of these, 11.1 lakh families were homeless and declared to be a top priority for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
On , commissioner Roshan Jacob conducted a review meeting focusing on financial approvals, the progress of construction projects, and the Zero Poverty program. She emphasised timely completion of projects, adherence to quality standards, and warned of actions against delays or subpar work. Additionally, she directed officials to prioritise housing for families without homes under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and ensure these families received essential services like clothing, food, education and healthcare.
On , while celebrating the eighth anniversary of the Yogi Adityanath government, the initiation of the Zero Poverty Survey was highlighted.
The government of Uttar Pradesh started a campaign that was to run from to , to ensure all the financial schemes are provided to the eligible families. Weekly reviews and monitoring were conducted to regularly track progress.
On the third day of the monsoon session of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly , on , a 24-hour debate was held in the parliament on Vision 2047, where Zero Poverty was one of the targets addressed. During the 32 hours and 28 minutes-long debate, finance minister Suresh Kumar Khanna stated that by 2047, poverty will be eradicated from Uttar Pradesh.
Skill training and employment In June 2025, chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh emphasised accelerating the campaign by linking over 13,57,772 identified ultra-poor families to key government schemes and livelihood opportunities. He stressed the need to empower eligible youth from these households through focused skill development across priority sectors like manufacturing, banking, information technology, education and hospitality with support from industry and banking partners. A verified database of 13.5 lakh families was used to converge 17-20 welfare schemes and to ensure no household was left behind. The immediate focus was on training and placing a pilot cohort of 300 youth, aiming to generate sustainable incomes of annually through skill-linked employment. Discussions highlighted the need to bridge soft skill gaps, improve training quality and duration, and strengthen partnerships with institutions already active in skilling, placement, and women-led enterprises. The campaign also planned targeted outreach to special groups like women and persons with disabilities, ensuring inclusivity in the poverty eradication effort.
In the first phase of the campaign, the leaders of 300 poor families were identified and given skill training by the Uttar Pradesh Skill Development department. It was planned to associate over 1,000 training partners in fields like offices, toilet cleaning, guest attendant, housekeeping, hospitality and language skill as a part of the 360-degree approach. The goal was to get these people employed in companies like Taj Hotels, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Medanta and Adani Group, where they can earn a minimum of . By , 40 major business leaders had pledged to provide jobs to the family members identified in the campaign. Chief secretary Manoj Kumar Singh stated that employment was one of the key initiatives of the government aimed at truly empowering the poor, and that it could serve as a model for the rest of the country.
Website The website, zero-poverty.in, was launched as a compilation of subdomains of welfare departments on-boarded under the campaign. In the first phase of the campaign, the chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Kumar Singh, guided the block development officers to register the verified profile of the enumerators (village panchayat level employees and cadres) on the website in a time-bound manner.
Mobile apps
BC Sakhi Banking Correspondent (BC) Sakhi (Women Banking Agents) is a community cadre for providing banking and financial services at doorstep at rural areas in Uttar Pradesh. A dedicated mobile app was designed to promote the BC Sakhi Yojana, which was made to assist with the banking requirements in the rural parts of the state. It is one of the primary apps being used to conduct the survey for the program, alongside the panchayats and self-help groups.
The program provided an amount of per month for six months to help the BC Sakhi users stabilise their banking service business. As their business proceeded, the users were paid a commission based on the amount of transactions they made, which was generally 0.20%-0.32% of the amount transacted.
Rishta Rishta is a mobile app launched by the Government of Uttar Pradesh on the day the initiative was launched by Livelihood Mission under the rural development department. The app provides a platform to monitor all processes with details related to financial transactions. The app shall also display detailed information on the poorest families identified by the mission's digital platform, allowing for an easy Direct Benefit Transfer.
The poorest families were to be selected on the digital platform in a way that their profile can be easily verified. The concerned department officers and employees were to be in regular contact with them. The poorest families will be selected on the basis of four standards.
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