Thiruvananthapuram: As the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala is all set to declare the state as extreme-poverty free, a section of social scientists have questioned the credentials of the claim.

An open letter signed by 20 economists and social activists has questioned the credibility of the process in which the state government identified the 64,006 families as extremely poor and the parameters used for declaring that there are no families in extreme poor category.

Social scientist and academician R V G Menon and economist K P Kannan are among the 20 odd persons who signed the open letter.

The group urged the Kerala government to revel details about the study, which was used to identify the extremely poor families. They also asked whether the 1.16 lakh tribal fam

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