The report officially launched by the chief minister V.S Achudananthan is a must read for every Malayali. The findings, suggestions, and conclusions of the report must be discussed upon and the social and economic life must be rearranged accordingly to overcome the current tension in these areas of the society. The report hints that the Kerala not only houses religious and caste discriminations but also has become a society of ego-centric, lazy, and greedy people.

Though the state could make giant leaps in areas of education, life expectancy, and child mortality and could rub shoulders with that of developed countries in these areas, the social attitude and mentality is still of that of the forefathers who earned the land the contempt of the great thinker Vivekananda who called it the house of madmen.

According to the report every year 6,789 crore is spent in the state every year, guess for what? Marriages! Such grand marriages are not only waste of time and energy but also patron of illegal dowry system and dead investment in form of gold. 2,800 crore is spent annually on medical expenses. Though the raise can be interpreted as the development of a basic infrastructure, the exploitation by large medical companies and private hospitals can’t e ignored.

It is also is pointed out that the middle class keralites prefer private hospitals over government hospitals. Partly due to the egoism and partly due to the poor working conditions of the government hospitals making them vulnerable to the profit boosting practices of these private hospitals. Another recent negative trend is the increase in loan and debts in day-to-day lives. Loans are available for vehicles, marriages, building houses, medical expenses, higher education etc. Private individuals play a major part in this area of lending because it is easier to avail loan from them than public institutions. This explains the increase in suicides around the state. People caught in a debt trap find no way to repay and these private money lenders never compromise.

The Shastra Sahitya Parishat reports that the farmers and the agriculture workers are the poorest and they form a plump 30% of the society and 19% of them regularly depend on private money lenders. The agricultural activities in the state are rapidly declining and it wouldn’t be long before it reaches zero level. The basic problem of this sector is the shortage of labour workers and high labour expenses an ironical situation.

The report also has some bright statistics such as 95% of keralites own a house, 85% of the houses have electricity, 50% of the families use cooking gas and 67% of the homes own a television, but unfortunately these statistics also have a shadow of debt behind them.