I might be biased but the poverty alleviation work done in Himachal Pradesh (and also Tamil Nadu and Haryana to a certain extent) are much more impressive than Kerala, which already had higher than average developmental indicators at independence.

When Himachal became a state in 1971, there were only 1,000 MI of roads total, and the literacy rate was around 6-7%, yet by 2023, the literacy rate has reached 82.8% (it's near 100% for those born in the 1990s onwards), rural healthcare and electrification has reached even tiny hamlets on the Tibetan plateau, and there is a massive biopharmaceutical industry with a annual revenue roughly comparable to Telangana despite being a much smaller state (6 million Himachalis).

Tamil Nadu and Haryana are 2 other states that made amazing leaps from undeveloped to industrialized.

Here's are good reads on the governance apparatus in Himachal:

https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Asian_Survey_550...

https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-rep...