The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Learn from Gujarat: Parameswaran

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Friday, Jan 26, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Learn from Gujarat: Parameswaran

Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: P. Parameswaran, director, Bharathiya Vichara Kendram, has asked Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan to turn Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's visit into an occasion for a healthy debate on Kerala's development prospects.

He said here on Thursday that much hue and cry was being raised over the visit. Even as an unwarranted and meaningless controversy was being raised, what was being ignored was the unique and unparalleled contributions of Mr. Modi to the development of Gujarat.

A debate over the Gujarat model of developmentassumed significance in Kerala, especially at a time when the State's planners, economists and administrators were groping in the dark following the failure of the Kerala Model.

Kerala had a lot to learn in evolving an alternative development model from Gujarat, adjudged the best State from the point of view of development by impartial observers and development experts. This was particularly important, because Kerala still remained a consumer State without producing anything worthwhile either for domestic use or export.It was, therefore, unfortunate that Mr. Achuthanandan and his Government were missing the golden opportunity of getting educated about Gujarat's development experience from Mr. Modi's visit. He recalled how the Kerala Government had some time ago sent its senior bureaucrats to Gujarat to study how Gujarat was effectively making use of loans from foreign agencies without harming the interests of the State.

He said that it was annoying that DYFI activists were playing into the hands of fundamentalist and terrorist outfits which were out to precipitate a crisis in connection with Mr. Modi's visit.

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