Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala presents one of the most bewitching paradoxes of world economy. High social indicators cohabit with poor industrial growth. High wages exist with rampant unemployment. And though socialist the land has provoked mass migration to the Gulf. The land is an unsolved puzzle.
The clues that will help define the strange economic behaviour of this land lie scattered all over, in ancient manuscripts, innumerable academic books, treatises, novels and government documents. Finance minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has decided to gather all these ‘windblown’ information into a single tome called the ‘History of Kerala Finance’. The book will essentially tell how public finance evolved in a land that was looked upon with the greatest curiosity by the world. A committee headed by finance minister Isaac has been formed to prepare the History of Kerala Finance.
Besides Dr Isaac, the committee will have five members: Dr Pinaki Chakraborthy, chairman, Kerala Public Expenditure Review Committee; Prof. D Narayana, director, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation; Dr K. Pushpangadhan (member, Third Kerala Public Expenditure Review Committee); R Mohan IRS(Rtd) (member, Fifth Kerala Public Expenditure Review Committee); and Dr P. Shaheena (Professor and associate dean, College of Cooperation, Banking and Mana-gement). Mr M. Chandra Das, retired additional secretary of the Finance Department, will be the convener.
“The book will be a compilation of the financial history of the state, including the budgetary data and statistics. The objective is to come up with a book that will be the ultimate reference book,” a top finance department source said. It is also a fact that a comprehensive and authoritative publication about state finances is not available. “The committee will not just collect information from various sources it will also qualify it. In short, the tome will be the result of intense and exhaustive research,” the official said.
