By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Former Union Home Secretary GK Pillai has stressed on the need to create more employment opportunities in the Northeastern region saying “lack of employment opportunities pushed many of the youths from the region to join the various militant groups.”
“The Government has to take some major steps towards creating employment opportunities to prevent the youth from joining militant groups,” Pillai, who is in Shillong to deliver the keynote address at the 4th Convocation of Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU), said while speaking to reporters here on Monday.
He believed that employment opportunities and skill building should be provided to the youths so that they can find job opportunities not only in the region but even outside the region and even abroad. Pillai said “this is important to arrest youth unemployment”.
“The youth of the region have tremendous talent in sports and music. Self- employment avenues can be created by tapping the young talents who have a potential for sports and music,” Pillai said adding that youth from the region have a huge potential for making it big in the hospitality sector due to their good command of the English language.
He said the so called militancy in the North-East without any ideology can be described as a cottage industry to collect money.
Citing an example, former Union Home Secretary pointed out that the original purpose of formation of ULFA was to fight influx of migrants from Bangladesh , but the same group took shelter in Bangladesh.
He also said the term insurgency has become obsolete in the North-East as many criminal gangs which have sprung up are running extortion rackets and kidnapping people.
On the Garo Hills-based GNLA luring youths and cops and offering big pay packages, Pillai said, “they are also getting money through extortions and since the risk of punishment is not there, crime and extortion is thriving.”
Giving an example, he said most of the crimes in Delhi are committed by the first timers and there is only 10% conviction. Hence they continue to commit various crimes without the risk of punishment, he said.
On the issue of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the former Union Home Secretary said that the feeling of the government is to have a more humane law for the region.
Earlier, Pillai had an informal meeting with the members of civil society organized by ICARE. They included the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor, Martin Luther Christian University, Dr KM Shyamprasad and Dr Glenn Kharkongor, Director IIM Shillong, Dr Ashoke Kumar Dutta, NEHU VC, Prof AN Rai, General Secretary of Lajong Football Club, Mr Larsing Ming and Director Sikkim Manipal University, Gagan Jain, besides others.
The meet essentially focused on building up a lobbying group from the region to interface with policy planners in Delhi. During the meeting, Pillai stressed the need to monitor how central funds are spent and urged the universities to conduct a study on the quantum of central funds returned to the Centre in the last five years on account of non-utilisation of those funds.