Addressing the problem of price rise and helping the people overcome the ill-effects of inflation are the important challenges before the Left
Democratic Front government in the southern Indian state of Kerala, Governor R S Gavai said on Friday.
In his address on the opening day of the 13-day Budget Session of the 12th Legislative Assembly here, Gavai blamed policies of the Centre for the present inflation in the country and said it was the duty of the Union government to help states.
"It is the duty of the Centre to immediately initiate measures to counter inflation and provide support to the public distribution system of the state government", he said.
With a view to check price rise, Kerala government has planned to supply 13 more items through Public Distribution System with a total subsidy of Rs 337 crore, he said.
"The Centre should meet half the cost of this new initiative of the state government," he said.
To increase paddy cultivation under the Food Security programme of the state government, it was proposed to implement 'Ari Sree' programme for streamlining various rice farming activities under different schemes, he said.
To ease the shortage of vegetables, the government proposes to provide 10 lakh families with assistance for the production of traditional varieties of vegetables, he said.
Listing out various achievements of the LDF
government, he said under Fishermen Debt Relief, loans of 1,17,000 fishermen to a tune of Rs 394 crore were written off.
"As a next step, government would take steps to write off all loans taken by fishermen from other institutions including banks," he said.
In the IT sector, he said various IT parks which were in the process of development would together create job opportunities for two lakh IT and ITeS professionals in the next two years.
On the Sabarimala stampede at Pullumedu that killed 102 Ayyappa devotees last month, Gavi said the government would take all possible steps to make Sabarimala pilgrimage safer and accident-free.
The process of implementing the master-plan for the development of Sabarimala would be speeded up, he said, adding 'Sabarimala Master Plan Infrastructure Trust Fund' has been formed to raise funds by way of donations from the devotees and sponsorships.
After going through the address for 20 minutes, Gavai asked members to treat the remaining portion of the address as read and completed his speech.