Kerala woos NRIs for investment

"It might have been there earlier. But they (labour) now understand the need for industry to grow and have been cooperative," he said in a reply to questions about labour problems in the state. He was speaking at Pravasi Bhartiya Divas.

"Kerala is one of the fastest-growing IT destinations in India. All the giant IT operators are now in Kerala and recently TCS has decided to open their global training centre in Kerala. We are promoting the youth entrepreneurs by earmarking one percent of our budget estimate," he said.

Despite scoring high on education and health indice, he admitted the state needs to provide quality higher education and world class healthcare.

Kerala has invested heavily in education and enrichment of human resources, he said, adding no other state has earmarked as much as 40 percent of its annual budget for education.

"We need to provide quality higher education and and world class healthcare to everyone. This goal is to be achieved with public private partnership... Since the goal is also to make it affordable to the poor, we plan to have more hospitals, medical colleges and centres of higher education in the government sector too," he said.

Kerala is very much indebted to non-resident Keralites for their contribution to the all-round development of the state, he said, noting that foreign remittance to Kerala has exceeded Rs 75,000 crores.