Bhubaneswar: Zero poverty is possible and achievable, economist and Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said here on Friday while delivering 16th Odisha Knowledge Hub lecture at the secretariat.

"Removing poverty needs activating the citizens. This cannot be done only through government money. It can be achieved through appropriate policy, institutions and strong willingness," said the economist, who is also the founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

Delivering the lecture titled "A world of three zeroes", he said: "Zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero carbon emission are not academic concepts. They are tasks that can be realised through joint action."

Yunus said that micro credit system through the models of "social banking" adopted by the Grameen Bank has been immensely successful in his country. The technique has helped lakhs of families in coming out of poverty. It has also helped Bangladesh enormously in empowering women. He emphasised that the similar banking models have also been successfully tried in various western countries. He expressed the confidence that the same model can be replicated in India and elsewhere for removing the poverty by improving banking access to poor men.

Finance minister Sashi Bhusan Behera presented a memento to Yunus.