The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : `Development from below' should be Kerala's strategy, says Patnaik

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 18, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

`Development from below' should be Kerala's strategy, says Patnaik

T. Ramavarman

Warns against economic growth trajectory led by corporate interests

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Planning Board Vice-Chairman Prabhat Patnaik has said that the State must pursue a strategy of `development from below' rather than blindly following an economic growth trajectory led by corporate interests.

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Patnaik said the levels of poverty had not declined in Kerala in the recent years as was being claimed by the Planning Commission of India (PCI).

"As per the PCI documents, the rural poverty ratio in Kerala had come down from 25.73 per cent in 1993-94 to a mere 9.4 per cent in 1999-2000. The norms adopted by the PCI for assessing the poverty levels are absolutely flawed. Even by official norms those who are not able to access 2,400 calories per day are treated as poor in the rural areas. But even by adopting a lower norm of 1,800 calories per day, it can be seen that rural poor in Kerala will be around 40 per cent and 38 per cent in those two years."

For quite some time Kerala had been maintaining a petty economy that was relying almost totally on exports either to foreign countries or to other regions in the country.

But across the world the terms of trade had been turning against the petty producers almost from mid-70s. The situation turned for the worse with the imposition of neo-liberal policies in the 1990s. The problems of Kerala had become more acute than other regions as the State did not have any subsistence production system and was heavily relying on commercial markets.

Destitution

A vast majority of people in the agricultural and traditional sectors had been pushed to destitution by these changes. The huge number of people registering for the arduous manual labour that would be provided through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Wayanad district was an indication of the level of destitution in the State. Growth had been taking place in few select service sector areas alone while all the other sectors of economy had been stagnating, Dr. Patnaik said.

Relying entirely on corporate houses or contract farmers would only worsen the levels of destitution in the State as they could only bring in jobless growth. These petty producers, traders and agriculturists should be protected through price support, State assistance and cooperatives.

It will be a pipedream to assume that huge number of people in the agricultural and traditional sectors can be provided employment in the high-tech sectors, the economist said.

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