Two years ago, when the Left Democratic Front government took over in Kerala, the state was reeling under a host of problems, most of them a result of the market-driven economic and political ideology adopted by the previous government. We know that the people of Kerala, who gave us an unprecedented majority, have a lot of expectations from us. We have been trying to meet this with and in the coming three years, the government will try its best to fulfill the promises we made two years ago. I am sure that this government’s initiatives will help the LDF continue in office in the future too, like in West Bengal and Tripura where Left Front governments have been at the helm for several years now.

The pressure from the capital market had forced the previous government to move away from welfare measures. This had a very bad impact on Kerala’s society and its economy. Food security was threatened. Agrarian crisis was at its worst. Incidents of farmer suicides were increasing. The law and order situation was beyond the government’s control. Crime against women had increased. And, a senior minister in the UDF ministry had to resign following allegations of rape. Our first attempt has been to set the farming sector right. We understood that a majority of the farmers, especially in the districts of Wayanad, Palakkad and Kasargode, were not being able to repay their loans. Among the many reasons, one was that agriculture wasn’t paying them enough. Due to the unrealistic import policy proposed by the Centre, products like coffee, pepper and coconut could not fetch even the production cost. To address this issue, other than declaring a moratorium on repaying loans and waiving off the amount taken by the farmers who committed suicide, we took two significant measures. The most important was the setting up of the Agriculture Debt Relief Commission.

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