Kerala Recorded 93.91 Per Cent Literacy in 2011 and an Infant Mortality Rate of 5 in 2023, the Only Single Digit Among India's 21 Large States

Kerala’s literacy rate was 93.91 per cent at the 2011 Census, as the Kerala Legislative Assembly’s state profile records it, and the state’s infant mortality rate in 2023 was 5 deaths per 1,000 live births. PTI reported in September 2025, from the Registrar General’s Sample Registration System report for 2023, that Kerala was the only one of the 21 large states with a single-digit rate, against 25 for India. The 2011 sex ratio was 1,084 women for every 1,000 men.

On 25 August 2026 the Union Home Ministry brought the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Act, 2026 into force, and the state is now Keralam in law. This profile keeps Kerala, the English name used until then and the one most readers search for. Census figures here are from 2011, the latest the sources give.

How three territories became Kerala on 1 November 1956

Section 5 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 formed the State of Kerala from three sets of territory: the former State of Travancore-Cochin, minus the areas passed to Madras (now Tamil Nadu); the Malabar district, minus the Laccadive and Minicoy islands; and the Kasaragod taluk of South Kanara district. The appointed day was 1 November 1956. The Kerala Legislative Assembly’s profile says Travancore and Cochin had been integrated into one state on 1 July 1949, and that Malabar had been a district of the Madras Presidency under direct British rule.

Section 4 of the same Act moved the Agastheeswaram, Thovala, Kalkulam and Vilavancode taluks of Trivandrum district, and the Shencottah taluk of Quilon district, to Madras. The first four became Kanya Kumari district. The Assembly’s profile says the nationalist movement in Kerala had called for the unification of Malayalam-speaking people under one administration. Section 6 made the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi islands a Union territory, and section 60 extended the Kerala High Court’s jurisdiction to them. The islands have their own profile in our Lakshadweep piece.

The Constitution’s First Schedule recorded the name as Kerala. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 2026 Bill says the Kerala Assembly passed a resolution on 24 June 2024 asking for the Malayalam form, Keralam, and that after the President referred the Bill to the state under Article 3, the Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution agreeing with it. The Lok Sabha passed it on 11 August 2026 and the Rajya Sabha on 12 August, and The News Minute reports that the Home Ministry’s gazette notification appointed 25 August as the day it took effect. The Bill as introduced also amends Articles 31A and 290A and the First and Fourth Schedules, each of which names the state.

How Kerala is governed

The legislature has one house. The Representation of the People Act, 1950, as updated for the 2008 delimitation order, gives the Legislative Assembly 140 seats, 14 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 2 for Scheduled Tribes, and the Act’s list of states with a Legislative Council does not include Kerala. Our guide to two-house states explains which states do. The same Act gives Kerala 20 Lok Sabha seats, 2 of them reserved for Scheduled Castes, and the Constitution’s Fourth Schedule gives it 9 Rajya Sabha seats.

The Assembly’s profile lists 14 districts, from Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Kasaragod in the north. The High Court of Kerala was established on 1 November 1956 with its seat at Ernakulam and inaugurated on 5 November, the Supreme Court’s e-Committee says. Its sanctioned strength is 35 permanent judges, including the Chief Justice, and 12 additional judges.

Below the state sits a three-tier panchayat system, which the Assembly’s profile dates to 2 October 1995. K. Jafar’s 2014 paper for the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, records that the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 followed the 73rd and 74th Amendments, and that the state launched the People’s Planning Campaign in 1996. The state decided to transfer 35 to 40 per cent of its plan outlay to local governments, he writes. In the early years they could not use more than 10 per cent of the funds they received, and a 2014 study he cites puts the share devolved over the long run at nearly 25 per cent. Our explainer on panchayats and municipalities covers the constitutional design.

A 2026 statute sets the state’s language policy. The Malayalam Language Act, 2025 (Act 3 of 2026) repealed the Kerala Official Languages Act, 1969. Under section 5, Malayalam is the language for all official purposes, subject to Articles 346 and 347 of the Constitution, and English may still be used for correspondence with the Government of India, other states, the High Court and the Supreme Court. Section 6 makes Malayalam the compulsory first language in government and aided schools up to Class 10. Section 7 lets Tamil and Kannada linguistic minorities write to and hear back from government offices in their own languages in areas the government notifies. The Governor’s assent was reported on 4 March 2026, and the gazette translation is dated 5 March. PTI reported that the Karnataka government objected, over students in the border region who would have to learn Malayalam, while the Kerala Chief Minister said the Act protects minorities. Our guide to state language policies compares the arrangements.

What Kerala’s economy is made of

PRS Legislative Research, drawing on the Economic Survey of Kerala 2024-25, puts Kerala’s gross state domestic product per person in 2024-25 at Rs 3,46,437 at current prices, up 9.4 per cent on the year before. India’s figure was Rs 2,34,859. GSDP is the value of everything a state produces in a year, so this measures output per head, not what an average resident earns. Services made up 67 per cent of the economy, manufacturing 24 per cent and agriculture 9 per cent, and real growth was about 6 per cent against 6.5 per cent for India.

The Chief Minister presented the 2026-27 budget on 19 June 2026, projecting GSDP at Rs 16,29,073 crore. PRS counts Rs 1,20,358 crore (71 per cent) of revenue receipts as raised by the state and Rs 49,288 crore (29 per cent) as coming from the Centre, as its share of central taxes and as grants. Own tax revenue is 6.1 per cent of GSDP. Salaries, pensions and interest are estimated to take 72 per cent of revenue receipts, and PRS notes that a larger committed share limits a state’s flexibility on other priorities. The fiscal deficit is targeted at 3.5 per cent of GSDP, against the 3 per cent the Sixteenth Finance Commission recommended for 2026-31. Our comparison of state finances puts these ratios beside other states’.

Money from abroad and a deepwater port

The Kerala Migration Survey 2023, whose key indicators the International Institute of Migration and Development published, estimates 2.2 million Keralites living abroad. Deccan Herald reported on 14 June 2024 that remittances to the state reached Rs 2,16,893 crore in 2023, up 154.9 per cent from Rs 85,092 crore in 2018. The survey also counts Rs 43,378.6 crore sent out of the state, about a fifth of what came in.

The Prime Minister dedicated the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport to the nation in Thiruvananthapuram on 2 May 2025. The Prime Minister’s Office release gives its cost as Rs 8,800 crore and calls it the country’s first dedicated container transshipment port, with a natural draft (water depth) of nearly 20 metres. Transshipment means moving containers from one ship to another. The Prime Minister said in the speech that 75 per cent of India’s transshipment had been done at foreign ports.

A temple fund in the Constitution and a land case that changed it

Article 290A says a sum of Rs 46,50,000 is charged on Kerala’s Consolidated Fund every year to the Travancore Devaswom Fund. A further Rs 13,50,000 a year is charged on Tamil Nadu’s fund for Hindu temples and shrines in the territories passed to it on 1 November 1956 from Travancore-Cochin. The Seventh Amendment inserted the article with effect from that date, and the article names only these two states.

A Kerala land law also sits at the centre of a landmark case. On 21 March 1970 a petitioner asked the Supreme Court to declare the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963, as amended in 1969, void. The Ninth Schedule, which shields listed laws from challenge, carries Kerala land reform Acts, and the case grew to cover three constitutional amendments. Justice M.H. Beg’s opinion calls it a reference to a special bench of thirteen judges, larger than any previous bench hearing a case in the Court. The basic structure doctrine article tells what the Court held.

What comes next

The Supreme Court’s Sabarimala litigation has had two stages. On 28 September 2018 a five-judge bench ruled 4 to 1 in Indian Young Lawyers Association v State of Kerala that barring women aged 10 to 50 from the Sabarimala temple was unconstitutional, and it struck down Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1965. The majority held that Ayyappa devotees are not a separate religious denomination and that the exclusion was not an essential religious practice. The dissenting judge held that the temple is a denomination whose internal affairs Article 26 protects and that courts should not test such practices for rationality.

On 14 November 2019 a review bench divided 3 to 2 and referred wider questions on Articles 25 and 26 to a larger bench, the Supreme Court Observer records. A nine-judge bench heard the reference for 16 days and reserved its judgment on 14 May 2026. The sources checked for this profile report no judgment since.