Thiruvananthapuram: Any shortcoming in the Kerala Government’s ambitious ‘One Year One Lakh Enterprises’ project will be rectified through joint action by all parties concerned, Industries Minister P Rajeeve has said. His response was based on the Manorama News Series 'Lakshanamotha Kallam,' aka 'The Perfect Lie,' which said that the list on the number of new enterprises registered was inflated with old establishments or even bunk shops.

The District Industries Centre has taken rectification measures if re-registered business ventures were included in the list of new enterprises, he told the assembly yesterday.

"The charge of including a 60-year-old venture in the list of new business enterprises has been taken note of. We have got copies of documents regarding the application for the new licence and the allocation of the same. Officials have been directed to check it once again. Certain media is indulged in a campaign for the last one or two years,” he said.

It’s not the Industries Department, but the Local-self Government Department that is issuing the licences. The same is uploaded on the portal by local-self institutions. The department will examine whether any businesses were run without licences till now and whether the owners have applied for the same now. But this will form only a small portion of the list, Rajeeve added.

Meanwhile, Anwar Sadath, MLA, pointed out that the figures given by the minister and those shown in the K-SWIFT portal for taking industrial licences don’t match. The minister replied that all the new enterprises might not be shown on the portal.

Through the ‘One Year One Lakh Enterprises’ project, new job opportunities were created in each institution at the rate of 2.15 percent, which is higher than the national average of 1.75, Rajeeve said.

Earlier, it had emerged that many existing businesses which got registered on the Udyam portal were included in the list of new enterprises.

The Kerala Government had launched 'One lakh enterprises a year' programme at the start of the current fiscal year with much fanfare. Almost a year later, the programme which had for its goal creation of more than 2 lakh job opportunities and bringing in Rs 7,000 crore in investment has become an embarrassment due to the highly exaggerated figures.