Kerala Congress leader V D Satheesan.
Credit: PTI Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: The opposition Congress-led UDF on Saturday termed as a 'joke' the progress report released by the LDF government in Kerala regarding the work it has done in the past one year, saying it was full of 'untruths, exaggerations and falsehoods'.
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan said that anyone looking at the report would be amazed by the claims made in the report.
Citing the example of the agriculture sector, Satheesan contended that the Left government, when it came to power for a second consecutive term, had promised to increase farmers' revenue by 50 per cent and raise the price of rubber to Rs 250 per kilogram.
"However, what they (state government) did was to write to the Centre to increase the rubber price to Rs 250. The coconut and rice grain collection has failed. The minimum support price of rice grain was reduced."
"The entire agriculture sector is in crisis and on top of that there is the problem of human-animal conflict which the government is unable to control," he contended.
Satheesan alleged that all other government departments, including health, were not functioning properly.
The opposition leader claimed that there were regular news reports about adequate medicines not being available in state-run hospitals and wrong operations being carried out in government medical colleges.
In the employment sector, between January to March this year, the unemployment in the state was 31.8 per cent, one of the highest in the country, he claimed, citing a survey report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
"The electricity board is under a huge debt, there are several months of arrears of welfare and social security pensions, the Kerala Civil Supplies Corporation is in ruins and the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation is on the verge of complete ruin," Satheesan alleged.
He said that the progress report was released by the state government at a time when 'Kerala is in a severe financial crisis and the treasury is empty'.
"There cannot be a bigger joke than that (the progress report)," he said.
Releasing the progress report on Friday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said the state has witnessed rapid development under the Left Democratic Front (LDF) rule in the eight years despite facing difficulties like floods, Nipah outbreaks, Okhi and the Covid-19 pandemic.