Ziren Yanthan
Dimapur
How many of us can guess the number of people earning their livelihood as a labor in construction sector? I bet it won’t be less than 30,000 across Nagaland. Out of which 80% are non-locals. How beneficial it will have been to Nagaland in many ways if 80% of the labors are locals instead? Is our state government doing anything? Yes, the Government is doing many things, coming up with numerous policies for addressing the unemployment issue of our state. But how effective are the policies and programs implementing by the government? That is a big question which we have to bonder upon.
There is a solution to every problem provided that the right policy is implemented which should be both practical and beneficial for our state. In bringing up this issue I share my view point of solution to address the unemployment issue through construction sector particularly. Construction sector has the potential to contribute in lightening the unemployment problem we have today which will also directly contribute in boosting our state economy with the circulation of money within our state.
It is a well-known fact of how building constructions are being managed by our non-local thikatars. For them it is a generation business and profession which make it difficult for our local labors to compete with them professionally. Every thikatar have their own rate of service charges be it local or non-local, so is the government advising the (administrator of) Municipal and Town Councils to look into this and fix a uniform rate? How many building constructions across Nagaland are built according to “building by laws”? 20% may be or less if the government check thoroughly, which in fact are endangering the lives of our citizens being our place situated in an earthquake prone area. How do we ensure that house buildings are build according to “building by laws” and how will it also benefit our state by replacing the non-locals by our locals within a time frame of 15-20 years and also instill the dignity of labor to our local labors, without which no policies will bring results.
The best way to address this is to identify the construction firms in Nagaland and make policies to bring all the labors (be it local or non-local) under those construction firms. Once we have such policy implemented by the state government, all the labors will be under a platform where the government will be at ease to implement uniform rates where everyone will work under the law, it will also make it easier to manage because of the share of responsibilities since the Municipal/Town Councils just have to keep a check on the construction firms within their jurisdiction.
This will ensure that every labor is engaged and gets work to earn. This will also enable the construction firms to mix our local with the skilled non-locals which in turn will let our locals learn the skills and ideas of the non-locals and this will equipped our locals to compete by both skill and profession. This is also the best way to instill dignity of labor to our locals. The span of 0-15 years will be a time period of training and accommodating our locals into this profession. With such kind of policy, it will also encourage for establishment of construction companies in our state by entrepreneurs, which will directly boost our economy and generate employment. This will not only benefit the labors but engineers, architects, interior designers, managers and many more. In fact how many unemployed engineers we have already in our state? With this kind of policy, it will also help the government in curbing even the influx of illegal immigrants because of the fact that big chunk of non-local labors are illegal immigrants.
The idea is very simple, come up with such kind of policy and implement after a proper research and identifying potential existing construction firms. How hectic it will be to check all the labors by Municipal/Town Councils? Just direct them to the construction firms and take report from the firms. This will also ensure that our citizens who are constructing houses have a safe house built according to “building by laws”. If we have such an effective policy, within a span of 15-20 years majority of the skill labors in construction sector will be locals. How much amount of money can be saved from going out of our state if majority of the labors are locals? How many thousand people will be able to earn their livelihood if we come up with such policy? How many problems it will help ease if such kind of policy is implemented? It is not that we don’t want or hate the non-locals, but look at the economy of their states and our state. Why not we help ourselves first and think about the others, if we don’t have enough to fill our belly how can we help others. It is better to share ideas rather than sit and complain and I hope our government will read this and come up with good and effective policy.
