Kerala ranks last in terms of business accessibility: Shashi Tharoor

Kochi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday criticised the economic policies of the Left government in Kerala. He said that the state ranked last in terms of business-friendliness due to excessive red tape. The MP added that residents were living beyond their means because the government was in financial trouble.

Speaking at the All India Professionals' Congress state conference at Thiruvananthapuram, he said that Kerala ranked last among Indian states in terms of the ease of doing business, citing data from the Niti Aayog.

"According to Niti Aayog, it takes a minimum of 120 days to set up a business in India, but in Kerala it takes 248 days. How will our state develop with such an attitude?

"It is time we remove red tapism and impart new training to the bureaucracy. We need to think about this," he said.

Tharoor also claimed that the southern state was in a financial crisis and despite that the administration keeps announcing various freebies.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were highlighting the number of kits distributed. But it is your grandchildren who would be paying for these kits as the government does not have the funds to refund it.

"We are living beyond our means, that is the reality today," he said.

The LDF government, however, has been blaming central government policies for "choking" the state financially. 

 

(With inputs from PTI)