Vast experience from the People’s Planning initiative intwo-and-a-half decades has helped Kerala to tide over the catastrophes in the past five years, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said.
“Twenty-five years of experience has made clear our strengths and weaknesses. We have to identify our weaknesses and find out solutions.
People as well as experts have to come together in order to take the torch and march ahead,” Dr. Isaac has said.
The Finance Minister was inaugurating a day-long international workshop here on ‘25 years of People’s Planning in Kerala’ by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT) and the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA)
The impact of People’s Planning on health and education was vivid.
Women empowerment, especially through Kudumbashree, is yet another area worth mentioning.
The RBI report on State finances had pointed out that local self-governments under the guidance of the State had made tireless efforts to counter the first wave of COVID-19, he said.
People’s Planning also helped to curb corruption to a great extent. Still corruption existed at the lower strata of governance. “We should abandon corruption. Decentralisation of power is not at all decentralisation of corruption,” Dr. Isaac said.
Kerala should lead the country in People’s Planning initiative and decentralisation of power. Hence, there should be a reasonable shift in the initiative in order to meet the changes in the economy, especially after the pandemic crisis.
Additional Chief Secretary Sharada Muraleedharan delivered the keynote address. KILA Director Joy Elamon and Director GIFT K. J. Joseph spoke.
Sessions on ‘Why the grama sabhas did not rise up to the expectations’, ‘Watershed level planning’, ‘Prevalence of corrupt practices’ and ‘Health and education sectors” were held.
Richard Frankie was the chief guest at a symposium on ‘Local democracy and development’. He released the latest edition of the book on People’s Planning co-authored by Dr. Isaac and Prof Frankie.
