Kerala’s growth surpassed national GDP in 2016-17: Economic Review

The Economic Review for 2017 was tabled in the assembly on Thursday by state Finance Minister Thomas Isaac.
Kerala’s growth surpassed national GDP in 2016-17: Economic Review
Kerala’s growth surpassed national GDP in 2016-17: Economic Review
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The Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP)  in Kerala increased from 6.6% in 2015-16 to 7.4% in 2016-17. While the growth rate of Indian economy was higher than the Kerala GSDP growth in 2015-16 at 8%, the growth rate of the state economy surpassed the national growth rate in 2016-17, the latest Economic Review for the state shows.

The Economic Review for 2017 was tabled in the assembly on Thursday by state Finance Minister Thomas Isaac.

The FM will present the state budget for 2018-19 on Friday.

In 2016-17, the contribution from primary, secondary and tertiary sectors to the Gross State Value Added at Constant prices was 11.3 %, 25.6 %, and 63.1% respectively. The corresponding figures in 2015-16 were 11.6 %, 26.2 % and 62. 2%.

The growth rate in primary sector increased from a negative rate of 11% in 2015-16 to a positive rate of 5% in 2016-17. This came about mainly on account of increase in production of crops, livestock, mining and quarrying, and fishing and aquaculture, the Review shows.

The state public sector undertakings have registered positive combined net profit (Rs 21.5 crore as on August 31, 2017) after incurring combined net losses for four years.

Other Highlights

Regarding Goods and Service Tax (GST), the review says that since GST is a destination tax and Kerala is a consumer state, it would fetch more tax revenue for the state and help it achieve the desired growth of more than 20% in tax revenues in the years to come.

Unemployed graduates

There were 30,719 unemployed engineering graduates in Kerala as on October 30, 2016 -- up from 23,984 in 2015. Other work seekers include 3,369 medical graduates, 48,180 engineering diploma holders, 86,191 ITI certificate holders, 1,182 agricultural graduates and 609 veterinarians.
Overall, the total number of professional job seekers has gone up from 1.63 lakh in 2015 to 1.7 lakh as on October 30, 2016.
Likewise. the number of general work seekers stood at 32.67 lakh, of which 20.19 lakh have passed Class 10, 6.87 lakh have studied up to Class 12, 2.01 lakh are graduates and 13,000 are post-graduates.

Capital Outlay

The capital outlay has shown a considerable increase in 2016-17. The capital outlay increased to Rs 10,125.95 crore from Rs 7,500.04 crore in 2015-16. Outstanding debt liabilities of the State at the end of 2016-17 were Rs 1,86,453.68 crore. The annual growth rate of debt is 18,48% in 2016-17 from 16.19% in 2015-16. The debt to GSDP ratio in 2010-11 was 24.24%. In 2016-17, it stood at 30.22%. The ratio of debt in terms of revenue receipts increased to 246.59% in 2016-17 from 227.97% in 2015-16.  The revenue expenditure as well as the capital expenditure more than doubled during the period from 2010-11.

The previous government left behind a net unpaid negative treasury cash balance of Rs 173.46 crore. The LDF government had to bear the brunt of the huge magnitude of deferred liabilities of the previous government, amounting to around Rs 6,000 crore and also non-budgeted short term liabilities of Rs 4,300 crore. The failure of the tax administration is shown by the data of tax growth from 2010-11 to 2015-16. The tax growth which was at a high point of 23.24% in 2010 declined sharply to 10.68% in 2015-16. The distress felt in the state economy also led to low buoyancy in revenue growth. The efforts of the state government to raise tax revenues in 2016-17 were severely affected and the state was able to achieve only 8.16 per cent growth as against the revised targeted growth of 14.24 per cent.

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