THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Infusion of private capital should be carried out with utmost caution since indiscriminate privatisation would have adverse affects, KPCC chief Ramesh Chennithala said here on Tuesday. The experience of US, France and many European countries in recent times is a pointer to this, he added.
Launching the official website of G Ramanujam Institute for Labour Studies (GRILS) here, the KPCC chief said that the Congress was in favour of private-public participation in development matters, but only in a transparent manner.
‘’The Congress has no blanket approach towards liberalisation. It wants to follow a policy with a human face. Companies which are solely devoted to making profits cannot be promoted,’’ he said. In the West, people are facing economic problems due to unbridled privatisation and reminded all concerned to learn lessons from this. Increasing productivity in different areas and securing the legitimate rights for the working class should go hand by hand, he said.
‘’The party has adopted a resolution insisting that the benefits of liberalisation should trickle down to the lowest level. The 14 flagship programmes including MGNREGP and NRHM are meant to improve the lot of the lower strata of society,’’he said.
Speaking on the occasion, Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed said that it was time for Kerala to ponder on how long it can move forward without making any contribution to the annual Five Year Plan by mainly banking in the hope of getting sufficient funds from the Centre. The is in the background of the state setting an ambitious 12th Five Year Plan size of Rs 1,05,000 crore. The Balance from Current Revenue (BCR) is negative, with the previous government leaving a Rs 2000-crore deficit.
He said that the problems in the US emerged due to wayward lending by banks in the form of mortgage loans without taking repayment capacity into account. Labour Minister Shibu Baby John said that it was time for all trade unions in the state to introspect on what they have done to improve the working and living conditions of migrant labourers in the state. In the case of nurses, it was shocking to find that out of the 363 hospitals inspected in various parts of the state in the last three weeks, only 24 were paying minimum wages to nursing staff as prescribed by the government. Of these hospitals, nearly 20 are small hospitals which has less than 20 staff, he said. He launched a website for the benefit of migrant labourers on the occasion.
Aryadan released a handbook of Bahrain migrants on the occasion by handing over a copy to the Labour Minister.
‘VS TO FACE DEFEAT’
Ramesh Chennithala predicted that Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan is going to be wiped out from the higher echelons of the CPM, once the organisational polls are over.
‘’There is no ideological debate in the polls, but only decimation of one group. It is curious that the war between the two factions is only to capture the party apparatus,’’ he said.