The Kerala government is planning to tap the large resources of the Non-Resident Keralites through incentives and motivation, which would lead to large-scale investment into the state, Minister for Non-resident Kerala Affairs M M Hassan said on Tuesday.
Inaugurating a workshop in Kochi on 'Job Creation through Enterprise Development among Returning Migrants in Kerala', Hassan said a major area where NORKA was presently concentrating was that of enterprise creation with the active participation and investments of NRKs and returnees.
NRKs, depending on their capacity for investment, have been categorised as low income and middle income group and suitable schemes and projects have been identified and formulated for each segment. Some of the projects were in the implementation stage, he said.
Efforts were also on to cater to the requirements of very low income segment of NRKs who cannot invest money, but would need government support for a livelihood.
Hassan said Education, tourism, IT, health and service sectors were the fields waiting to be fully explored.
The minister flayed the 'negative' attitude of banks in their lending policies which create 'obstacles' in the state's development process. Though banks in Kerala were collecting huge amounts as deposits from the state, particularly from NRKs, they were disbursing less than 45 per cent of those deposits alone as loans in the state.
The workshop was jointly organised by the International Labour Organisation and Institute of Small Enterprises and Development.