Kerala - Alappuzha   

State achieved economic growth under UDF rule, says Chandy

Staff Reporter

ALAPPUZHA: The State has achieved phenomenal economic growth, which is higher than the national growth rate in the last five years under the rule of the UDF Government, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said. He was inaugurating an election convention of Tourism Minister K.C. Venugopal at Bhattathiripurayidom here on Tuesday.

Mr. Chandy said the economic growth rate of the State as recorded on March 31, 2005 was 9.2 per cent when the national average growth rate was only 7.5 per cent.

He said the growth rate of the State would be a two-digit figure when the final statistics of economic growth of the State till March 31, 2006 is released. Mr. Chandy said the growth of the information technology industry in Kerala was insignificant when the neighbouring States had witnessed tremendous growth in the IT sector.

While the earnings from software exports from the State was a meagre Rs.328 crores last year, Karnataka recorded an income of Rs.10,000 crores from software exports last year, said Mr. Chandy.

He said the State's economic growth had stagnated during the last 50 years because of the negative tactics followed by the communist party and only a UDF victory could take the State to the course of economic growth. Mr. Chandy asked the voters to return Mr. Venugopal to the Assembly for his initiative in implementing development works in Alappuzha.

KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala, who delivered the keynote address, said the CPI(M) had sidelined all constituent parties in the Left Democratic Front except the CPI and there was no democracy in that front. He said seat allocation had been a problem in the UDF in the past but now the situation in the LDF had deteriorated following allocation of seats to various constituents. Mr. Chennithala said there was no anti-incumbency wave against the ruling front at present and the UDF would get a comfortable majority in the coming Assembly polls.

Those who spoke included the former MP and Congress leader V.M. Sudheeran, Minister for Rural Development C.F. Thomas, IUML Alappuzha district secretary B.A. Razzak, Kerala Congress(M) State general secretary

A.C. Mathew Edayadi and DIC(K) district president N.J. Job.

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