Future of Kerala and role of global Malayalees
KERALA is now a state with no visible poverty, and people generally have a stable life. The tourism and hospitality industry is booming in Kerala, the private healthcare industry is a profit-making business and government employees and pensioners are well off. The only sect of people who are not happy are the students, who are generally aimless. Nobody wants to take a regular college degree. Everybody wants a technical qualification.
About 200,000 or more NRKs from non-Gulf countries and another 250,000 plus Malayalees from the Gulf countries visit Kerala every year and spend crores of rupees during their stay. This flow of money, along with the money spent by more than 25 lakh tourists and another 25 lakh Sabarimala pilgrims, has made Kerala a rich state.
The consumer market, along with the hospitality industry, has created a lot of rich businesspeople and everybody has a job. Lots of Gulf Malayalees are part of this successful group of Malayalee businesspeople in Kerala. Then there are Malayalees from other parts of the world. Most of them are leading a well-to-do life in those countries. These first-generation Malayalees are still affiliated with Kerala, where they have friends and family. However, their second and third generation Malayalees have no real link to Kerala.
There was a gathering of the Lokha Kerala Sabha at the end of January in Thiruvananthapuram, where Malayalee representatives from more than 100 countries participated, according to the government.
The chief minister now names Kerala "Global Kerala." But almost all the representatives attending were first-generation Malayalees, and there were many from India, not global Malayalees.
If the government can tap the resources properly, global Malayalees can play a very important and useful role in the socioeconomic development of Kerala. The government has to provide proper direction, support and advice for the team to be part of this development.
NORKA, the current organization coordinating the efforts of NRKs is not very effective. NORKA should be reorganized to become a more effective government agency coordinating with global Malayalees.
