Viketo Nihokhe Sumi
Dimapur
Anyone can enumerate countless ways to resolve unemployment stink in Nagaland. But we Nagas, both public and government readers, are averse to lengthy articles and so I'd like to put up a lone means to our State Government on how to introduce more stable jobs by thinking out of the box.
Let me initiate by asking about Formal Education! Is it prudent for current younger generation to imperatively accomplish levels of qualifications and, in the process, spending tons of cash? Where does benefits lie in parance to achieving many a certificates, bestowed upon individuals that henceforth qualify them to series of opportunities readying them for the 'real world' if they are left haplessly, eventually? They are most qualified for the jobs that are no longer vacant.
Since the past decade, the ratio of new job opportunities created in Nagaland is far cry from the number of producing qualified candidates holding requisite degrees for employment, than being symmetrical. Nagaland has one of the highest literacy rates in India but despite it, unemployment is overwhelming in our society. As a result, overall people are propagating belief that education is futile, unlike the traditional creed we believed that education is the sole solution to every odds. Although this is a chronic pandemic incitement in a larger scale, there is less anyone can do to repel or deflect because practical outcomes backed by such issues are relevant everywhere. Thousands of educated and qualified youths who sacrificed more than two decades to equip themselves through education to survive in the real world are all stuck stagnant, with no job titles they are specifically or generally educated for.
Candidates have to go searching beyond our state's boarder lines to get the rightful job for one's qualification and albeit such endeavours, assurance is not guaranteed.
Any young or old Naga will tell you how dispiriting it is when one meet youths holding master degrees or engineering degrees employed at a minimum wage stalls as technician or salesperson in a run-down private establishments. Here's the fact - you're bound to witness such instances, in numbers, everyday. So when an aspiring students witness such outcomes, don't they have rights to correctly abandon studying to formulate themselves with different tactics to live in the real world in their adult life? Doesn’t take a doctorate degree to rightfully answer such a question.
Let's play the “blaming-game”. I cannot entirely blame the state government solely or any other individuals or groups of Nagas that have had the influence and capital to ease Naga economy.
What I can, accurately, blame is our one and only lone traditional ambition: Government Employed Service Personnel. During a child's upbringing, from the moment a child reaches a stage to comprehend, all parents begin to drill the concept to complete education vying a secure government job in a child's mind. This is the ultimate truth. For most of us Nagas, government service is the only means that defines individual-standing in our community; anything beyond that is beyond our grasp.
In Nagaland, Central or State's Government job is the yellow road that more than 90% of the students undertake which leads most to downfall since there can only be so much available vacancies. There are no major defining forked roads. Granted that numbers of youngsters choose to become businesspeople and contractors through their own merits and visions- which reduces unemployment, yet majority of typical-thinking-students are left standing when the beats stop in metamorphical musical chairs game, befuddled in the middle of nowhere.
What's the height of insanity? To mildly put it, it's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Conventional jobs vacancies may have worked one upon a time but it is no longer sufficient. And people, let me tell you that the present structural and numbers of allocated government jobs can never house the entire unemployed bodies. Nor can founding more Government Departments solve this issue.
Now, let me get to the sole heart of the article.
Central Government have been inventive, imparting arrays of free or partly financed at moderately priced technical diplomas to unemployed party, helping them set up a productive and resourceful environment in society. These programmes are genuinely advantageous which have helped millions of our countrymen and women make a mark in their lives. But such reservations don’t amount to any adequacy when the reserved numbers of designated seats drips down to State level.
Additionally, our State Government have also been promoting such dynamism on top of Central's undertakings and such acts truly deserved appreciation. Our government have hit a jackpot in this particular arena. Imparting technical and practical skills packaged into diplomas have helped hundreds of unemployed people gain rightful jobs and set up their own establishments through bank loans, backed by their infused diplomas. But I don't project that it's enough and there's a wider range of areas that can be outreached. More articulate measures of practical diplomas in more viable fields should be announced, so that thousands of Nagas can stop seeking minimum wages at a dead-end job, thousands of miles away from our Statehood.
What more our government can do is to provide fairly and enterprising business atmosphere to foreign or other Indian states to establish many major assembling centers at competitive prices. Cutting down state taxes to production factories with the help of a veteran and skilful accountants benefitting both private sectors as well as the state and bringing a major change to our economy too.
Our government should also start imparting more basic technical skills to unemployed masses. It’s not a myth but a fact that larger international corporations are at constantly scouting for Asian towns and cities where technicians and skilled workers can be amassed locally, where they can set their base. Commercially, it is sound, looking from every dimension, than flying in experienced workers from all corners of the world. Additionally, manpower is enormously cheaper than the advanced countries. Wherever in Asia it may be, if corporations find enough skilled technicians flocking together in any locality, they are prone to come with lucrative proposals.
Here, I don't singularly mean to attract foreign companies but national enterprises also.
Now is the era when we need an extremely canny and modulating government - government that doesn't capitulate when we hit a hard wall but breakthrough it by revitalizing and revamping critical sectors and ideally equipping the unemployed with skills that the present generation demands, after surveying through microscopic glass.
Apart from imparting practical skills in various areas to the unemployed masses, state government should start encouraging youths after 8th and 10th standard students into practical skills if they are not interested in further formal education. I am certain such steps can be rewarding not for only a segment but overall community. It gives youngsters a sense of accomplishments and accountability instead of being a nuisance to the community with no purpose but unending free time.
The critical standpoint of my article is: We need more and more State Government funded diplomas in every field imaginable that can sustain a living for individuals by marketing their skills rather than being complacent applying for government jobs that they keep on falling on and on, regardless.
More importantly, we need Ministers and Advisors who don't merely depend on State's Taxes and Central Grants but those that are charismatic and diplomatic enough to build a profitable relationship on both sides with other states and even foreign counterparts with the consent of the Central Government; also attracting foreign aids in our state through statesmanship's endeavour and responsibility.
