The Hindu : Kerala News : Change in trajectory of growth needed: Patnaik

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

Kerala

Kerala

Change in trajectory of growth needed: Patnaik

Staff Reporter

He says resistance to globalisation is a difficult task

KANNUR: Kerala State Planning Board Vice-Chairman Prabhat Patnaik has said alternatives to the concept of economic growth endorsed by policies of globalisation have to be explored to reverse the current economic trend that accentuates crises in agrarian and rural sectors.

"What we need is a change in the trajectory of growth," Dr. Patnaik said while addressing a meet-the-Press programme organised by the Press Club here on Tuesday. He said the State Planning Board had already aired its critique of the general policies of the Planning Commission as enunciated in the approach paper relating to the 11th Five Year Plan.

The approach paper proceeded along the same path of development that the country had seen over the last several years, he said.

"We have to begin with the reality of agrarian crisis and the crisis in the petty production sectors. They have to be protected and promoted by the State," he said adding that the `dualistic' development that recorded high growth but generated no employment could not be sustained.

Stating that resistance to globalisation was a difficult task, Dr. Patnaik said the agrarian crisis was a result of globalisation. Post-globalisation tariff policy, sharp cutback of Government expenditure, increase in interest rate due to which banks were no longer interested in providing agricultural loans had adversely affected the rural sector, he said.

Though certain sections of the population in the country had been benefited from globalisation, the rural population was in deep trouble, he added.

The Planning Board Vice-Chairman said the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission including minimum support price for a variety of crops, tariff policy to support this and a procurement policy were proposals to address the issue of the agrarian crisis.

Dr. Patnaik also emphasised the importance of crop diversification. As long as the crisis continued, measures such as debt relief should be coupled with these alternative proposals, he added.

To a question on the opposition of certain sections to the State Government's enactment on the self-financing institutions, Dr. Patnaik said that the Act brought about social regulation over the self-financing professional colleges.

Such a regulation was essential as education fundamentally had to cater to society, he observed. Education could not be treated as a commodity, he added. To another question on the Government's supposed rethink on the Expressway project, Dr. Patnaik said one should always look at the costs involved in any project, its beneficiaries and people who were going to be affected by it.

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