Nobel laureate Joseph E Stiglitz gave Kerala a reality check on Monday, while speaking at the online inaugural of the three-day global conference 'Kerala Looks Ahead'.
Speaking from his base in America, one of the world's most revered public policy analysts told Kerala that it was part of the “fossil economy” and that it was high time the state did something to reduce its dependence on the oil money from the Gulf or be left behind.
“You might not be aware that you are part of the fossil economy, but you indirectly are,” Stiglitz said at the online conference organised by Kerala State Planning Board. He was referring to Kerala's huge reliance on remittances from the Gulf. “Kerala has relied on remittances as a source of income and it has particularly relied on remittances from the Gulf states,” he said.
“The irony is that in that way Kerala has become indirectly dependent on oil, on carbon economy. This is why it is important to look ahead. By 2050, the world will be based on renewable energy. The Gulf countries that are so dependent on fossil fuel will not have the kind of position they have today unless they restructure faster than they did in the last 30 years,” Stiglitz said. “The world going forward will be markedly different,” he said.
The Nobel laureate said that this made it imperative for Kerala to think about a strategy that could generate more jobs within Kerala. “It can't be dependent on remittances. Kerala has to generate its own productive capacities,” the former chief economist of the World Bank said.
He said that even the Centre could not be relied upon. “The Central government, in New Delhi, has shown itself in so many ways to be economically incompetent,” Stiglitz said. He held up the example of demonetisation to demonstrate the economic mess the Centre is capable of precipitating.
Stiglitz said diversification held the key to Kerala's future. He identified tourism as a potential growth area. “Tourism will rebound and when that happens it will do a world of good for Kerala,” Stiglitz said. The economist, who occasionally travels to Kerala on vacation, said he would be back to enjoy its scenic beauty once the pandemic was under control.
He also wanted Kerala to take advantage of its skills, its human resources. Nonetheless, he said that Artificial Intelligence would render routine jobs that require low amount of skills redundant. “One will have to go to higher levels of training and skills,” Stiglitz said. It is this upskilling that Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac had unveiled in his Budget Speech on January 15.
Stiglitz then wanted Kerala's health sector gains to be enhanced using manufacturing. He wanted Kerala to become the manufacturing hub of telemedicine-related technology and also that of generic medicines.
World Health Organisation's chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan, who also spoke during the occasion, said about widening the scope of telemedicine in Kerala. She introduced the concept of “shared virtual care”. This involves a single specialist giving group therapy to a set of patients suffering from a similar disease. Dr Swaminathan said such group virtual care was now being offered in Dr Aravind's Eye Clinic in Madurai.
