Kochi: Congress leader V D Satheesan on Monday said that the CPM-led state government's claims on the business environment in Kerala were inflated. Satheesan met the media with statistics challenging the government's claims amid the controversy triggered by an article written by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor praising the Left government's pro-entrepreneurship initiatives.

Satheesan, who had earlier come out against Tharoor's endorsement of the government claims, said on Monday that he was responding to the comments made by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slamming Congress on Sunday.

Satheesan, the Leader of Opposition in Kerala assembly, belittled Kerala's ascension to the top position in 'ease of doing business' ranking saying the World Bank had discontinued with the index in 2021 after massive discrepancies were reported on the ranking system.

Satheesan cited the state's share of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) to challenge the state government's claims on its Year of Entrepreneurship initiative. "The claim is that 3 lakh ventures were started in the state in three years. If that's true, there should be at least 2,000 ventures in an assembly constituency. If a minimum of Rs 10 lakh is invested in a project, there should be growth to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore in the state. It should also reflect in the state's share to the national GDP. However, the share has been remaining static at 3.8 per cent in 2022 and 2023 according to the Relative Economic Performance of Indian States report prepared by the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. Kerala is the south Indian state with least share of GDP," he said.

"GST registration is mandatory for establishments with a turnover of over Rs 40 lakh. Also, GST registration is done by companies to avail input tax credit on their initial investment. Even if we assume that 50 per cent of the establishments countd in the 3 lakh don't require GST registration, there should have been 1.5 lakh new GST registrations in the state. However, as per the data on the central government's website, the number of new GST registrations in the state during the period is only 30,000. It is not clear how many of them have been shut," Satheesan said.

He also cited the state government's data to question the claim of 3 lakh new ventures. "As per the data on K-Swift, the state government's facility for single window clearance to start business ventures, only 64,528 micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been given permission from January 1, 2022 to February 1, 2025. Then where does the figure 3 lakh come from? The government should explain," he said.

He also pointed to a revision in the central government's definition of MSMEs. "After Covid in 2021, the central government included wholesale and retail establishments under MSMEs. As per the Kerala government's Economic Survey 2024, business establishments not reported as MSMEs before 2021-22 were included in the list since then. In 2022-23, the number of such ventures was 48,945; in 2023-24, it was 43,869. Even small establishments functioning for years have been covered in this. They are included in the 64,528 ventures mentioned in the K-Swift data," he said.

He also contested the government's claim on the growth of the state's startup ecosystem, which Tharoor has endorsed in his The New Indian Express article. "The 2024 Global Startup Ecosystem Report mentions that the state recorded 254% growth in startups from July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2024 compared to the period between July 1, 2019 and December 31, 2021. This is a strange comparison. 2019-21 was the pandemic period and there was practically nothing happening," he said.

Satheesan also compared the previous Congress-led UDF regime and the current LDF government to challenge the latter's claims on the growth in IT sector.

He said the number of IT companies in Technopark grew by 37 per cent during the UDF regime, while it is only eight per cent under the current government.

Asked repeatedly if Tharoor was unaware of the statistics, Satheesan said the Congress MP could be convinced about the facts. “When the UDF launched the protests against the SilverLine semi-highspeed rail project, he took a stand different from ours. However, when we presented the facts to him, he changed his stance,” Satheesan said.