THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: They say travel changes people. But here is the story of a person’s journey that went on to inspire a state’s future plans. Years ago, V D Satheesan visited Singapore and came back with a lingering question. He revealed it to The New Indian Express after presenting his maiden budget on Friday.
“Standing there, I wondered why Kerala cannot progress similarly. We have even more, in terms of natural advantages, than Singapore. The thought stayed with me,” he recalled. On Friday, that lingering question found an answer in the budget in the form of Mission Samudra. “We included it in the budget after a thorough assessment. The vision is to develop Kerala into a port city. Seamless integration of our sea, inland waterway networks, road and rail infrastructure are part of it,” he said.
Few politicians in Kerala have studied the state’s public finances and economy as closely as Satheesan. As a legislator, he spent 25 years on both sides of the aisle, analysing budgets. And everything about Friday’s budget was a first for Satheesan - a first-time minister, who went on to become the CM presenting his maiden budget.
“Fulfilling” was how he described the feeling after presenting the budget. The document with precise and unsparing content reflected Satheesan’s character. It opened with a blunt account of the liabilities inherited by his government.
Then he cited a Rs 20,500 crore gap in Central transfer projections made by the previous government based on which it built the plan outlay. In the new budget, plan outlay was cut from Rs 35,750 crore to Rs 30,370 crore. Remarkably, Satheesan chose restraint over another unrealistic projection to keep the outlay intact.
The vision section has several promising proposals like the Kerala Knowledge Valley, a Southern Kerala Economic Corridor, health insurance scheme offering Rs 25 lakh coverage to all families and the Wayanad Tribal University. “We did not come to power to take Kerala 25 years backward but to take it 25 years forward,” he said.
However, a gap between ambition and allocation was evident in the budget. Only seed funding was provided for several flagship projects rather than full commitment.