THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An attractive project for senior citizens has been announced in the Kerala Budget presented today. The project has been named New Innings. The finance minister announced that Rs 5 crore has been allocated for the implementation of the project.

‘New Innings’ is a project encouraging senior citizens to launch novel enterprises/industries utilizing their financial capacity and experience. Some of the leading industrialists of the world started their career in the field of industries and commerce only after becoming senior citizens.

The government's assessment is that this project will enable the senior citizens to be socially active and participate in economic activities. Finance Minister K N Balagopal's longest budget speech held today. The speech lasted two and a half hours. Balagopal had presented four budgets before this.

Compared to his predecessors, Balagopal's style is to present the budget in a concise manner without poetry or quotations. Therefore, the legislators did not expect the budget speech to last beyond an hour and a half. Meanwhile, he left many parts unread. If he had read this too, this would have been the biggest budget speech in the state's history.