TRIVANDRUM, 29 March 2005 — Senior bureaucrat and economist V. Ramachandran, the latest victim of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s patronage politics, has blamed powerful middle class lobbies and the absence of a competent political leadership to bridle them for the state’s poor record of reforms. Ramachandran, who relinquished the post of the state’s planning board vice-chairman paving way for Congress leader C.V. Padmarajan, first politician to head the elite body of planners in as many as three and half decades, said only reforms could take the state to prosperity.
He also blamed the state’s socioeconomic crisis for the failure of the 2003 Global Investor Meet (GIM) that could have changed the entire economic scenario.
“Sadly, a state which has immense potential is turning its face against the process. The state is moving at a snail’s pace on the reforms front. In fact, it is a powerful lobby which is putting the brakes on reforms and modernization,” he told The New Indian Express before packing off to the United States. He was instrumental in initiating a whole slew of reforms during the previous government headed by A.K. Antony.
“Studies have pointed out that there was a decrease of 50,000 primary students in the state in 1981. There were several schools without sufficient students. But the teachers’ unions, cutting across political affiliations, opposed the re-deployment of teachers. Even the aided schools, run by private agencies and salary paid by the government, dared to question the government decision,” he said.
Similarly, about 30 percent of the employees of the Secretariat were recommended for redeployment when the government embarked on the decentralization process. But the Secretariat lobby did not yield.
“Take any sector – higher education, co-operative, power and water supply. The middle-class lobbies, which want to maintain the status quo, are ruling the roost. It’s a social malice. It has to be handled in that way,” he said.
“In fact, the people are more afraid of these facts coming out. There is no able political leadership to deal with the situation. Of course, there are a few leaders who realize the situation and want to act upon it. But they are yet to prove that they have the acumen to tackle the situation,” he said.
Ramachandran attributes the wrangling within the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) dispensation to turning Kerala’s development agenda upside down.
Kerala Minister Takes Back Resignation
Kerala’s Cultural Affairs Minister A.P. Anil Kumar said he was not pressing his resignation from the Congress-led coalition government.
After a meeting that lasted only three minutes, he said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy refused to accept his resignation. “Leaders from top to bottom, including former Chief Minister A.K. Antony, urged me not to quit,” he told reporters after the meeting.
