Kannur :

K P P Nambiar, renowned technocrat and founding chairman of Kerala State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (Keltron), will be cremated in his native village Kalliassery on Thursday. He died of age-related illnesses on Tuesday evening in his Bangalore residence, where he had settled after leaving Kerala.

Later, after a brief stint abroad, he returned to India on the invitation of the then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. Later he came to Kerala on the state government’s request and played a pivotal role in the setting up of Keltron in 1973. While establishing Keltron, Nambiar chose his native place for establishing a major unit.

“Keltron was actually a dream project for Nambiar and he put in lot of energy to realize his dream,” reminisced writer and activist Karivellur Murali, who was a store manager in the Keltron unit in the district. “Though the unit in Kannur, which he set up along with the headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, is the biggest capacitor manufacturer in Asia and known for its quality, Keltron is unable to market it properly due to the policies of the central government,” he said, adding that it would have been a different story for the ailing enterprise had he been there at the helm of Keltron.

Nambiar’s dreams were not limited to electronics. “When Keltron’s component making unit was established in Kannur, he was concerned about the power problems here and wanted to set up a power project,” said industrialist and exporter C Jayachandran.

“He had even identified 190 acres at Irinavu for the project. However, there was stiff opposition from residents and politicians and meanwhile the business partner for the project, Enron, also got entangled in controversies and it ultimately killed the project. The land was later identified for the Indian Coast Guard Academy.

He had big dreams for Kannur but it did not take off because the community and political leadership failed to understand his vision,” he said.

In a sense, his decision to leave Kerala was a political statement on the state of affairs here, feel those who knew him. Though Kannur University conferred him with DLitt in August 2013, Nambiar could not make it and the honour was received by his wife Umadevi.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / July 02nd, 2015