Kerala Model - History

History

The Centre for Development Studies at Thiruvananthapuram with the help of United Nations, conducted a case study of selected issues with reference to Kerala in 1970s. The results and recommendations of this study came to be known as the 'Kerala model' of equitable growth which emphasised land reforms, poverty reduction, educational access and child welfare. Professor K. N. Raj, a renowned economist who played an important role in India's planned development, drafting sections of India's first Five Year Plan, and a member of the first UN Committee for Development Planning in 1966, was the main person behind this study. He started the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram in 1971, by the request of the Kerala Chief Minister C Achutha Menon.

The Kerala model brought a sea change in development thinking which was until then obsessed with achieving high GDP growth rates. However, Pakistani Economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, changed the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people centered policies. To produce the Human Development Report (HDRs), Haq brought together a group of well known development economists including: Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand, and Meghnad Desai.

In collaboration with Raj’s close colleague Amartya Sen, he persuaded the UNDP to carry out work on Human Development Indicators (HDIs) which started playing a larger role than GDP in the framing of development policies. Another decade down the road, the Millennium Development Goals, embracing many of the Kerala Model’s features — with the notable omission of land reforms — became the new charter of development. Raj's seminal contribution to development policy thus had worldwide repercussions.