A village in Kerala has pledged to neither ask for nor give any dowry to step up anti-dowry movement in India.

Malappuram district's Nilambur village kicked off the campaign of being a dowry-free village after about 1,500 young men and women said no to dowry.

"The idea came while we were conducting a survey to find out the number of people who had no house of their own. We were startled to find that 25 per cent of the lower strata had no house of their own as they sold it to get their daughters married," said Aryadan Shoukat, Nilambur Village Council president.