Kerala, popularly known as ‘God’s Own Country’, is one of the beautiful states of India with almost 100% literacy. If you travel through the interiors of Kerala, you can understand that the epithet ‘God’s Own Country’ is well deserved. The backwaters are one of the greatest attractions in Kerala. A journey through these backwaters not only calms your mind but also is a lifetime experience. Kerala was selected by the National Geographic Traveller as one of the 50 destinations of a lifetime and one of the thirteen paradises in the world.
Kerala is having a very favorable climate for agriculture (or rather I should say that Kerala was having because these days the climate in Kerala is very much unpredictable). There are acres of farm land which are left uncultivated throughout Kerala. Keralites depend on other states (where the climate is not as favorable) for almost all food items including fruits and vegetables despite the favorable conditions prevailing here. One of the major reason for this is labor problem. There has been an incident where farmers were forced to bring machines for harvesting their fields because of shortage of labor. But they were not able to harvest because of the intervention by trade unions (who claim to represent the working section of people but I cannot believe this because of various reasons). Because of this, many acres of cultivated land were left unharvested resulting in the loss of crores of rupees for the farmers and to the government.
Infrastructure development is considered as the building block for every other development. One of the main aspects of infrastructure development is the availability of road and rail networks. I think Kerala is blessed with road networks. Kerala may be having the highest density of road networks per square kilometer. But are these roads safe for travel??? The recent gas tanker accident on one of Kerala’s busiest roads points to this fact. Will a huge tanker turn upside down by just hitting a small car??? It is just unbelievable. There has been a demand for an express highway in Kerala for quite some time. But before going into such big projects, the government should make the existing roads safe for travel. Just take as an example the pathetic situation of the M.G Road running in front of Kerala’s prestigious Secretariat and Legislative Assembly. This is not only because of the policies of the government that these roads are remaining like this but also because of the people of Kerala. If the situation of a road in the capital city is like this, then one can imagine the condition of roads in other parts of Kerala (I’m not saying that all roads are like this. There are good roads in Kerala).
What is the time frame for completing a project in Kerala??? The answer would be interesting – ‘n’ multiplied by the average time needed to complete that project, where n>=2. Every body knows the minimum value for n but nobody knows the actual value. Yet another Aryabhata or Brahmagupta has to be born in Kerala to find its value. The number of projects in pipeline or in progress (and would remain in progress for n years) are more than the number of completed projects. The Vizhinjam project, Smart City project, Vallarpadam project, Railway Coach Factory, IIT, Kuttanad package, NH development project, MC Road development project… the list goes on… Both Central and State Governments, along with various political parties share equal responsibility for this.
So who are the anti-heroes here??? I should say that they are none other than the people of Kerala. That is why I’m forced to add a few words to the epithet for Kerala – ‘God’s Own Country and Devil’s Own People’. And the greatest irony is I’m one among them!!!
