Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 1 (PTI): Kerala should imbibe the best ideas and practices from different parts of India and the world, which will help transform it into a progressive and modern economy that serves the interests of every citizen, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said here on Monday.

Inaugurating the three-day glonal "Kerala Looks Ahead" Conference and Consultation meet here, he said "We need to think collectively on ways to move forward.

We look forward to ideas that will help transform Kerala into a true knowledge economy founded on new technologies and innovation."

Underlining efforts to consolidate and deepen gains made in human development, he said Kerala is set for a 'great transformation', building on its achievements in land reform, education,health, social justice and decentralised government.

"We can and must emerge successful in our attempt to find productive employment for our educated and highly skilled citizens.We will be successful in creating a progressive and modern economy that serves every citizen," he said.

As the State prepares to draw up the 14th Five Year Plan (2022-27) when a new government will start its term, the time is ripe for new initiatives and schemes, he said,adding that insights drawn from discussions at the meet would be valuable in formulating new projects and to revise existing schemes.

Vijayan said the conference would discuss ways to boost development and manage the States agricultural, animal and fishery resources.

As for industry, the meet will explore areas that merit special attention amid the constraints of land and population.

Other subjects of thrust will be upgradation of centres of higher education, quality services to citizens while making the government transparent, efficient and responsive and making Kerala the countrys hub for skilled labour.

Kerala State Planning Board Vice Chairperson Prof V K Ramachandran said though the last four-and-a-half years had been turbulent due to back-to-back natural disasters and the pandemic outbreak, these have also been years of achievements.

This period saw most sweeping changes in public schooling, greater access for people to quality health facilities, transformation in physical infrastructure, a new policy in industry and IT, deepening participatory local government, a renewed thrust to livelihoods and job creation, enhanced social protection measures and gender empowerment.

In his virtual keynote address, Nobel laureate economist Prof Joseph E Stiglitz said factors that contributed to Kerala's success are "competent government institutions, competent administration, participatory democracy and decentralisation, a reliance on Science and the continued importance given to planning ".

Kerala should reduce dependence on remittances from the Gulf countries as the world was moving away from oil and has started using renewable energy sources as part of the efforts to deal with global warming, he said.

The state should formulate its own economic strategy.

Two key principles for Kerala are "diversification" and "building on its current strengths", he added.

Prof Stiglitz said Kerala needs to work ahead as by 2050 the world would be largely dependent on renewable energy.

it was imperative for Kerala think ahead and create more jobs within the state and not depend on remittances, he said.

Lauding the Kerala government for its governance model of giving importance to health and education and five-year planning, he said it had also handled the pandemic situation efficiently.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation,noted that health outcomes in Kerala were "comparable to the highest in the world" and "recent data from NFHS-5 showed progress in many indicators like IMR and MMR".

Observing that the pandemic had taught the importance of investing in public health, she charted out a three-pronged strategy for the state to deal with its health issues.

"In Kerala, there are pockets of under development, pockets of poverty and pockets where there are highly vulnerable people whose health outcomes are far worse than the rest of the population. This has to be addressed.

The second is sustainability; anything we do would need to be sustainable.

And the third is resilience in the face of health shocks that come from time to time."

Kerala has had an experience with NIPAH which was handled excellently and actually the outbreak was contained and controlled, with minimal impact and loss of lives, she said.

The COVID pandemic, however, has overtaken the capacity of the best health systems in the world.Therefore, this is a good time to identify where policies can be improved and also the gaps in human resources and institutional capacity."

Observing that the pandemic has brought to the fore the accelerated use of digital tools and technology, she made out a strong case for using tele-medicine on a wider scale.

"We have a shortage of specialists, and in order to reach more people with specialist care, the use of tele-medicine is a very good option.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)