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The remark, made by CPI(M) Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem in May last year after a series of setbacks to his initiatives to draw private capital into the state, sums up Kerala’s poor investment climate. Kareem estimated that the state lost 300,000 potential jobs by the controversies that followed almost every attempt he made to encourage investment.

The biggest challenge faced by the new United Democratic Front, or UDF, government, which won the recent assembly elections by a whisker, will be to give the state an investor-friendly face.

After all these years, Kerala still does not have a single manufacturing leviathan in the private sector. Whatever recent investments have taken place or are expected, are all in the public sector.

Even small scale industries are languishing. “The resurgence of economic activity will follow only if there is political will to encourage small scale entrepreneurial activity in a big way,” says Debashis Chatterjee, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.“The new leadership will have to take the state out of the stereotype of a ‘command and control’ economy.”

In agriculture too, productivity requires serious fixing, as the area under food crops has been shrinking, while that under cash crops is rising.

If there are any new jobs being created in the state, it is only in the services sector. Per capita consumption in Kerala is robust, the highest among Indian states, thanks to the two million-plus Malayalees working overseas whose remittances make up close to a fifth of Kerala’s income.“Kerala’s growth rate in recent years has been good, but it has not resulted in new employment opportunities for people,’ notes Prof P.K. Michael Tharakan, Vice Chancellor of Kannur University. The state had had a growth of 8.1 per cent in 2005-10 period, points out McKinsey, but there is a risky dependency on foreign remittances.

To bring in investments, infrastructure will have to be considerably improved. The new regime must pay close attention to the state’s roads. Road density in Kerala is higher than the national average, but roads are of poor quality. The number of vehicles is increasing, but the growth in road network has not kept pace.

Power capacities too must be increased if the new government is serious about encouraging industries. The peak demand Kerala met in March was a measly 3103 MW, less than a third of the peak demand met in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

One big advantage the new government will have over its predecessor is that it is led by the Congress, the ruling party at the Centre. Kerala can hope to extract more than its deserved pound of flesh from the Centre in the months to come.