THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) is helping Kerala to achieve development in tune with changing times. It is the biggest contributor towards the creation of Nava Keralam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
The renowned Kerala Model came to a standstill at a later stage and different sectors could not achieve much development afterwards, he said. “The state budget did not have the resources to fill the development vacuum. Sectors like education, health and transport suffered and people were disappointed.
The government which came to power in 2016 found a remedy by restructuring KIIFB, and it worked,” he said after inaugurating the silver jubilee celebrations of KIIFB here on Tuesday.
The organisation brought huge infrastructure development. “KIIFB is to be credited for the smart classrooms in our schools, and development of roads and bridges.
It funded the upgrading of primary health centres into family health centres, and helped launch super-speciality facilities at taluk hospitals. Considerable amounts were spent on the development of hospitals which helped the state in a big way to deal with the Covid pandemic,” he said. The CM said KIIFB has taken up the responsibility to bring futuristic development in Kerala.
Finance Minister K N Balagopal said KIIFB could do a large number of projects because of the continuation of the government. The organisation can do more if the government is reelected for a third time, he said.
KIIFB CEO K M Abraham said their outlay for different sectors was much higher than the state budget outlay.
“In 2023-24, the budgetary allocation for schools was Rs 426 crore. KIIFB’s outlay was Rs 3,224 crore and it would have taken eight years for this spending if it was made through the budget.
While the budget allocation for the higher education sector was Rs 265 crore, KIIFB’s expenditure was Rs 2,488 crore, nine times high. The spendings through budget and KIIFB in the sports sector were Rs 34 crore and Rs 921 crore respectively. Without KIIFB, it would have taken 27 years,” he said.
