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President gives Kerala a 10-point development agenda

Special Correspondent

Move aimed at making the State an economic power house by 2015

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has presented Kerala with a 10-point development agenda aimed at making the State an economic power house by 2015.

Delivering a historic address to the members of the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Thursday, Dr. Kalam urged the State to identify its core capacities and adopt 10 different missions, including development of tourism, waterways and deep-sea fishing, development and marketing of knowledge products and pharmaceutical products, creation of an army of nurses and paramedics to meet the rising demand at national and global levels, setting up of exclusive economic zones to attract NRI and other investors, value addition to tea, coffee, spices, coconut and fruits and use of space technology for industrial development to achieve its development goals.

In his 52-minute address, Dr. Kalam said Kerala's most important core competence was the `unity of minds' it had achieved. He pointed out that Kerala had blended multiple religions and multiple cultures into a unique culture of its own. "We have to collectively see how these multi-dimensional strengths of Kerala, its secular ethos, bounty of natural resources and excellent human resource can be used for making Kerala a model State for (the) rest of the country to follow," he said.

Dr. Kalam, only the second President to address the Kerala Assembly after K. R. Narayanan in 1997, congratulated the people of the State for having taken Kerala to the top rung among Indian States in the National Human Development Index. He was confident that Kerala's per capita income could be increased from the existing Rs.23,000 a year to Rs.50,000 in three years and also to create an investment-friendly climate leading to new employment avenues for the 3.7 million educated unemployed youth of the State.

Pointing out that Kerala's contribution to the nation's earnings of $18 billion from information and communication technology applications during 2004-05 was quite low, the President urged the State to venture into knowledge products in addition to other IT-enabled services.

He suggested the formation of a `task team' by the State Government with experts drawn from different IT areas for formulating and implementing and a plan to develop, produce and market, nationally and globally, IT products and IT-enabled services, including BPOs, worth at least $2 billion by 2008. The President also urged the State to set up at least five exclusive economic zones with proactive labour policies and single window clearance system and establish 200 PURA (Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) units along its 580-kilometre coastal stretch so as to provide physical, electronic, knowledge and economic connectivity to the people living in the coastal areas.

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