VOICE & VIEWS
CBS LINE Volume 4(8) Kiran Kumar Kakarlapudi Economic Advisor to the Vice Chairperson of the Kerala State Planning Board Assistant Professor Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation 1. Despite leading India in human capital metrics, with a 41% higher education Gross Enrolment Ratio, Kerala continues to face a youth unemployment rate of nearly 30% alongside a subdued manufacturing base. In this context, what policy measures do you think are necessary to address constraints such as high land costs and operational friction, attract large-scale private investment, and create more formal local employment opportunities? Respondent:Educated unemployment in Kerala is not a recent development. It was already the central concern of research at the Centre for Development Studies in the 1970s, when higher education enrolment was a fraction of today's. The state's unemployment rate has run two to three times the national rate throughout that period, curr...