THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Plan outlays of the present meagre scale, if continued over a period of several years, will badly undermine the quality of social services in Kerala, according to the State Planning Board.

In its draft approach paper for the State's Eleventh Five-Year-Plan, the Planning Board says there is something intriguing about the apparently impressive growth of over six per cent achieved by the State in recent times in spite of very low levels of Plan outlays. Over the past five years, because of the fiscal squeeze experienced by the Government, annual Plan outlays plummeted below five per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

If the trend continues, it "will impinge adversely, if not on the rate of growth of the GSDP itself, then at least on the quality of social services whose excellence constituted the core of the so-called Kerala model" of development, the paper says.

This is disturbing in itself. It is also disturbing for another reason. The success of the State in providing literacy and health care has not only brought down birth and infant mortality rates, but also increased longevity. Consequently, the age composition of the population is changing significantly in favour of the older age groups. This is going to place an additional demand upon the health care system, even as the increased demand for pension payments further restricts the possibility of raising Plan outlays.

According to the paper, the State's impressive social sector record makes demands in other ways as well. The spread of elementary education implies a change in the nature of the problem of unemployment.

The type of work demanded by the educated unemployed is different from that demanded by the unskilled unemployed, or those denied access to education.

"It is not enough therefore to have a scheme like the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) that ensures 100 days of employment in the form of manual work for a person in each household each year. Such a scheme may alleviate destitution associated with unskilled unemployment, but, given the smallness of its skilled work component, it does little to meet the aspirations of the educated unemployed. The nature of employment generation in Kerala, therefore, has to change in keeping with the spread of education," the paper says.

This does not mean that the problem of `simple unemployment' (or lack of employment for simple low-skilled labourers) does not exist in the State. The paper notes that such an impression is widely prevalent, giving rise to the argument that the EGS has little relevance in the state.

This is incorrect. In the districts of Wayanad and Palakkad, where the EGS was introduced, a remarkably large number of people have applied for its benefits. This is an indication of the fact that `simple unemployment' is a serious problem in the State too.

Absolute poverty is linked to `simple unemployment.' And, from the proposition that `simple unemployment' in the State is seriously underestimated, it follows that the magnitude of absolute poverty too is underestimated. The paper argues that if an intake of 2,400 calories of food daily by a person is used as the norm, 82.5 per cent of the rural population in the State will fall below the `poverty line.'

"No doubt Kerala has always been, intriguingly (in view of its apparently better anthropometric indicators than other States), a low-calorie intake State, which is why this absolute figure [indicating rural poverty] is so high. But the notion that Kerala has overcome rural poverty does not stand scrutiny," says the draft approach paper.

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