The ruling CPI(M) in Kerala is apparently fighting the demons of the past as it engages multilateral lenders such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) seeking assistance to ‘rebuild’ the flood-ravaged State.
A visiting team of the World Bank is already reported to have offered assistance based on simpler terms and conditions after a round of talks with Chief Secretary Tom Jose and secretaries of other departments.
Borrowing limits
On its part, the State government should finalise and submit projects in sectors such as drinking water, drainage, education and transport for immediate consideration and get it endorsed by the Centre.
The World Bank is also learnt to have offered to reduce the lead time for sanctioning funds from the normal three years, giving due consideration to the specific circumstances obtaining in Kerala.
But experts say this can happen only after the State government manages to enhance borrowing limits from 3 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product to 4.5 per cent, a request for which is pending with the Centre.
Meanwhile, the government playing perfect host to the World Bank and ADB teams has expectedly generated jeers from Opposition Congress, which reminded the CPI(M) that it had declared these very agencies persona non grata a few years ago when the Congress was in power.
The reference was to the agitation launched by the CPI(M) against a Modernisation of Government Programme (MGP) assistance ₹1,200 crore from ADB, proposed by the Congress-led United Democratic Front government in 2001.
Irony of circumstances
A spokesman for the Congress recounted the “reprehensible” incident when black oil was hurled at an ADB team by activists of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the CPI(M)’s youth wing.
VS Achuthanandan, the then leader of Opposition and later CM, had gone to the extent of exhorting CPI(M) activists to manhandle KM Abraham, the then secretary in charge of MGP, the Congress spokesman said.
It is a rather bitter irony of circumstances that the ADB assistance sanctioned in 2001 funded the computerisation drive in government departments and the same Abraham would become the Chief Secretary under the CPI(M).
After retirement, Abraham has been appointed at the helm of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, a government-owned financial institution, set up to mobilise funds for infrastructure outside the State Budget.
Meanwhile, State Finance Minister Thomas Isaac has gone on record saying that what the CPI(M) had opposed was not the concept of multilateral loan, per se, but “strings that come attached with it.”