At Kollam, CPI (M)’s major policy shift – bringing private investment into Kerala PSUs

This comes days after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had presented a draft called `New Ways for New Kerala’ – a blueprint for Kerala’s development. Among its major highlights was private investments in the state to help generate more employment opportunities.

According to Govindan, the draft enumerates a way to tide over the “neglect” of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre. “Kerala is under an economic siege imposed by the Union Government. Kerala is being stifled by the Centre which wanted to stymie the development of the state. All the delegates have wholeheartedly welcomed the suggestion for domestic resource mobilisation as a new way for new Kerala. This is a common policy, which was ratified by the conference. Which sectors will be tapped for resource mobilisation (such as imposition of cess, additional tax, hike in taxes etc) will be decided later,” he said.

Referring to the decision to bring in more private investment to Kerala, which the party had once opposed, Govindan said: “There are several projects and opportunities within Kerala worth investment and from which money can be generated. We had abandoned the high-speed rail corridor project, not because of financial woes but due to the Union government’s stand against it. In such projects invested money can be recovered”.

CPI(M), which has vehemently opposed the disinvestment policy of the successive union governments, has instead decided to opt for public-private partnerships in loss-making state government undertakings. Over the years, the state has been infusing money into loss-making undertakings as part of its policy to protect the public sector.

Govindan called the move “an alternative to crony capitalism”.

“We have a long list of such public sector enterprises in all districts. This is not a policy for selling off. If a public sector entity cannot be taken ahead, we can use the PPP model. It could be a cooperative sector also. There are several options. We don’t mean the crony capitalism that the Centre is doing now. Our approach will be different,” he said.