KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS 16. The financial model in full Chapter 5 made the argument; this chapter does the arithmetic, across downside, base, and upside, and finds the point at which the machine stops costing the state money. This is the chapter a finance reviewer should read first. It builds the cost of the institution from the bottom up, sets the program-agnostic revenue lines against it, traces three scenarios over the years from first capitalisation to operating self-sufficiency, and identifies break-even in each. Every figure is an illustrative planning assumption drawn from public data and stated in the assumptions register at the back; none is a forecast, and a finance reviewer should re-run the model with the state’s own preferred inputs. The purpose here is to show the shape of the economics and the robustness of the central claim, not to predict a particular rupee. HOW THE ASSUMPTIONS LEAN, STATED UP FRONT A finance reviewer’s first question is which way a model’s assumptions are tilted, because inputs can be chosen to flatter. This model is built to lean against itself on both sides at once: costs are estimated high (a generous escalation to the expensive frontier model, and the steep annual 248