Deportations may send Kerala's economy into a tailspin

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The return of many illegal migrants in Saudi Arabia will adversely affect Kerala's economy, which is heavily dependent on money coming in from the Gulf countries.

The state is still to recover from the effect of more than 30,000 being deported from the United Arab Emirates last year and the huge influx of Indians from Kuwait during the Gulf war in 1990.

More than half of those who returned from the Gulf still have not found jobs in a state where unemployment is already high.

This has also reduced business activity in pockets of the state where more people had gone to the Gulf. Real estate prices, which show up during the boom period in the late seventies, have slid dramatically. But despite the fall in prices, there has been little transaction in real estate during the last two years. Demand for consumer items has also declined drastically after people returned from the UAE.

While the state government had promised a rehabilitation package, nothing tangible has been done so far. And due to a lack of funds and jobs, the state can do little. So it passed the buck on to the central government, claiming the Centre ought to take care of the migrants, who contributed so much to India's foreign exchange reserves. The central government has not reacted positively to any of the rehabilitation schemes suggested by the Kerala government.

The Union finance ministry did not even approve of the state government's proposal to set up a growth fund using money coming in from non-resident Indians.

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