The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : State up against new challenges

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Friday, Nov 03, 2006
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

State up against new challenges

P. Venugopal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Where does Kerala stand after 50 years of its formation? The State can rightly be proud of its achievements in the sphere of human development, in which the indices showing its current status are comparable to those in developed countries. It also has a more egalitarian society than that in most other States in the country, with the deprived sections receiving a greater measure of protection and support within the system.

There is general agreement among economists that these achievements were made possible by the pro-active social interventions and welfare measures taken by the successive governments that had ruled the State. The first communist Government headed by E.M.S. Namboothiripad in 1957 set the agenda for the State with its Land Reforms. Though power had alternated between the Left and the Congress-led coalitions in the State, the government had been consistent all through the past five decades in pursuing policies that are normally associated with Left politics.

For instance, though Land Reforms were set into motion by the EMS Government, they were continued by the subsequent regimes and were completed only in 1970's. The same had been the case with welfare measures. Each government had tried to outdo the previous one in bringing deprived sections under the cover of social security net. It is another matter that the welfare programmes are now under tremendous pressure due to the resource constraints of the Government. What is significant is the consistency in governmental approach witnessed in the State.

The first three decades since the formation of the State (the period till the latter half of 1980's) witnessed unimpressive growth in economy, with the producing sectors stagnating or even deteriorating. There are people who attribute this to the resurgence of the working class and the peasantry, with State support, from the exploitative system that had existed in here before. With the neighbouring States offering a more conducive environment for capitalist exploitation, it was only to be expected that some of the producing sectors should migrate across the State's border.

Paradoxically, 1980's was also the time when Kerala shot to world-wide fame for the development model it represented: remarkable progress in all human development indices such as education, health, birth rate, life expectancy and infant survival, despite very poor economic growth.

State support had provided the foundation for these achievements. However, at a time when these achievements by themselves are putting new challenges before the State, they are threatened by the retreat of the support mechanism, enforced on the State by the Union Government's fiscal reform measures. With lower birth rates and longer life expectancy, the age profile of the population is fast tilting in favour of the aged, which means lower number of people to work and higher number of people to support. Public healthcare system cries out for higher investment. So also the education sector, as the aspirations of the youth go up and the need of the times change.

Over the past couple of decades, the growth rate in the State has begun to pick up and is even exceeding an impressive level of six per cent per annum in the recent years. According to data brought out by the State Planning Board, this growth is spurred mainly by the service sector, while the producing sectors continue to languish.

Tourism boom

Tourism is witnessing a boom here. The State also nurses big hopes on Information Technology, though this industry is still in its infancy here compared to the growth it has recorded in some of the other States such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

The fruits of these emerging sectors will not reach large sections of the rural population surviving on agriculture and traditional industries, both of which face unprecedented crisis.

Kerala's farm produce and traditional sectors no longer enjoy price protection because of the trade liberalisation and pro-capital policies of the Union Government. In the case of traditional industries such as coir and cashew, the situation presents the contradiction of the workers becoming more and more impoverished even as the entrepreneurs flourish.

The State Planning Board, in its Draft Approach Paper for the next Five Year Plan, notes that rural destitution is increasing in the State. If income for a person to access 2,400 calories of food daily is taken as the norm for sufficiency, 82.5 per cent of the rural population was below the poverty line in 1999-2000.

However, Kerala had always been, intriguingly, a low calorie intake State "in view of its apparently better anthropometrics indicators than other States."

Still, rural destitution is of a very high order in the State.

The growing tendency of the farmers to commit suicide is but an indication of the gravity of the problem. The State, as it completes 50 years of its formation, is thus confronting a complex situation.

While the economy is growing, the divide between those who receive the fruits of growth and those bypassed by the growth is widening.

The Government is caught between the resource demands of the growing economy on the one hand and the pressing need of large sections for support.

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