Mani: Kerala has only Bengal for comfort

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The Kerala Finance Minister, Mr K.M. Mani, says the only other state that offers some comfort for Kerala on its weak financials is West Bengal, which had slipped several notches under the Left rule.

Blaming the LDF for its “poor financial management” in the last five years, Mr Mani pointed out that the per capita revenue deficit in Kerala was Rs 873 as against Rs 152.85 for Tamil Nadu, Rs 286.5 AP and Rs 195.7 for Karnataka.

West Bengal, with Rs 2,023 per capita revenue deficit, was way behind Kerala.

Mr Mani feared that Kerala was already in a debt trap. As per the budget presented by the former Finance Minister, Dr Thomas Isaac, Kerala had borrowed Rs 19, 633 crore, out of which Rs 15,399 crore was used for debt servicing in the last fiscal. This was when 21 States had recorded revenue surpluses, overcoming the recessionary phase.

Referring to Dr Isaac’s claim that there had been no treasury overdraft during the LDF term and that the treasury liquidity was Rs 1,963 crore when he stepped down on May 18, Mr Mani said this was not factual because the immediate disbursals under various heads came up to Rs 2,154 crore, including the funds spent for the anti-recession package.

According to Mr Mani the LDF’s term was marked by stagnation on the farm front, poor growth of infrastructure, rising unemployment and huge investment gaps.

The unnecessary delays in executing the SmartCity project in Kochi had denied job opportunities to Kerala’s youth and the absence of educational opportunities at home deprived them of forward and backward linkages.

If the Farm sector accounted for 15.02 percent of the GSDP in 2005-06 when the Congress-led UDF left office, the corresponding figure in 2009-10 was 12.01 percent. Similarly, the industrial production declined from 25.06 percent to 21.71 percent. The overall production declined from 40.08 percent of the GSDP to 33.72 percent, said Mr Mani.