This is one occasion that has the Left front government in Kerala seeing red over the colour red. In fact, the state industries department led by minister Elamaram Kareem is going that extra mile to wipe out red — from the books of accounts of all the state PSUs — and make sure that from 28 now, all the 42 state-run PSUs are in the black by the time the Left front government completes its five-year term in 2011.

“Yes, we have already turned around a number of loss-making PSUs in the state. When the Left government took over in 2006, there were 43 such units, which between them were making losses aggregating Rs 65 crore. By diligently pushing ahead with reformist measures, we have managed to make the books read a different figure — Rs 165 crore aggregate profits, with two companies — Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (Rs 60 crore) and Malabar Cements (Rs 40 crore) — spearheading the revival. We have put our target for the current fiscal at Rs 240 crore. Also, when our government completes its term, the aim is to make the rest of the 14 units, many of them in the unviable textile sector, turn profitable," the minister told The Indian Express.

In a bid to fast track this, the state government has revived its efforts to woo investors to the state, an exercise that was temporarily suspended during the Lok Sabha polls. Their latest stop, on Friday, was Pune, where the state government team, led by a number of top bureaucrats, pushed the state as a feasible investment destination. It’s another matter that most of the folks who turned up for the investment meet were non-resident Keralites (NRKs). On offer were industrial clusters catering to food processing, light engineering and IT, not to mention the perennial sunshine sector of tourism.

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