If you thought growing opposition and attacks on the Emerging Kerala event are hassling Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, you’d be wrong. We meet him at the Cliff House, his official residence, over a leisurely breakfast at 8 a.m. He has been up since 5.30 a.m. meeting a stream of visitors and the house is buzzing with people.
Without any fuss or frisking, we are led into his sparse office where the simple unpretentious beige sofas are akin to the ones you’d find in any Government guest house. The dining room is even less pretentious, but the dosai-sambaar-chutney , which his daughter Achu Chandy herself serves, is delicious. Answering his critics he clarifies that the EK event is not to attract investment. “The objective is to expose the opportunities Kerala has to offer. We also want to give a message to the rest of the world that Kerala has changed; it is an investment-friendly State. We welcome investment,” he told The Hindu Group.
Land challenge
The focus, said Chandy, is to exchange views with representatives of the 52 participating countries. And such an event is not new to Kerala. A.K. Antony organised the first Global Investors Meet in 2003. “Narendra Modi only followed.”
He termed as “an old story” the perception that a high degree of trade unionism was keeping industries out of Kerala. “Now the mindset of the entire working class and their leadership has changed. The total number of working days lost due to workers’ strike is the lowest in Kerala.” If industrial units remained closed in Kerala, that was due to lack of financial or raw material resources, not due to strikes.
But yes, shortage of large areas of land for industrial use is a big challenge. “We have some land in Palakkad and Kasaragod, otherwise there is no waste land or large parts of vacant land available for industries.”
“But we are planning a corridor from Kochi to Palakkad, have identified some land which could provide opportunities for manufacturing. Of course we will not go for polluting industries for environmental reasons,” he added.