Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Change in attitude of people must, says Chandy

Special Correspondent

`I have not changed since I became Chief Minister'

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said that Kerala was currently witnessing small wonders in development, but it would require a miracle to make it a fully developed State by 2010. But the Chief Minister said he was confident about the miracle taking place provided there was an attitudinal change in the people.

In a first-person article released on the occasion of his first anniversary as Chief Minister, Mr. Chandy said his Government, while pushing for development, did not want to forget a large segment of population that was dependent on agriculture, traditional industrial sectors, farm workers, coastal and tribal communities and backward sections. It had included three more programmes to the 10-point agenda set by President A. P. J. Kalam. The Chief Minister recalled that he had announced another nine-point programme in his Independence Day speech.

The article is more of an introspective nature. Instead of making claims about his Government's performance, the Chief Minister sought to draw attention to the immediate task at hand now that Kerala was in the thresholds of a development explosion. He said he had been criticised for his travels to various parts of the State. The huge crowd in his office had come in for adverse reference. But controversies and lack of time had never affected the administration. On no account had a single meeting postponed or a single file delayed for want of time. "I have not changed since becoming Chief Minister and continue to be among the mass, something I am used to as a public servant," he said.

He said it was true that mounting files took away a major portion of his time. He was able to feel the pulse of the people through these complaints and memorandums. In the last one year, 2,03,200 complaints were received through various means, including the Chief Minister's website. Each complaint was handled with sensitivity that it affected the life of the petition. "Experience shows that many people benefited from this," he said.

Mr. Chandy identified two "small" issues that gave him satisfaction during his one-year tenure. The first one was the decision to pay pension to various categories such as agriculture workers, unemployed, widows etc. on a monthly basis, while the second was that he was able to help a lot of people by giving assistance from the Chief Minister's relief fund. He had sanctioned amounts for medical treatment for 36,671 persons. But a few people had come out with the allegations that the tsunami relief fund was misappropriated. He said he considered such decisions as a palliative touch of the administration.

The success in getting Sabarimala development off the ground also gave him immense satisfaction, he said. The decision to ban lottery was rather painful. When paper lottery was banned to prohibit online lottery that had by now become a social evil, thousands of poor people were affected. However, his Government corrected this mistake without delay.

The Chief Minister listed out the achievements in the field of Information Technology and Higher Education and claimed that the world education conference would open up new possibilities in the higher education sector. He referred to the President's speech and said Dr. Kalam had taken Kerala to a dream world before returning home.

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