Editor,
The financial crisis looming large over our state should surely awaken us from our deep slumber. Forty two years of gross financial mismanagement has led us to this present crisis. The ban on coal mining could prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the ruling party in the state. The impending crisis will surely put the leadership qualities of our Chief Minister to the test and if he is able to stir the state out of this impending financial mess then it will surely prove his mettle as a strong and capable leader. Let us look at a few alternatives available to us. The first and most viable alternative source of revenue generation is tourism. Having been a student of Economics, the theory of International trade has always fascinated me. Sometimes you have to wrack your brains to make sense of the numerous economic theories, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the real benefits this theory can generate if it can actually be put to practical use.
Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. It is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. According to Wikipedia, Tourism provides a total of 144,838 full time equivalent jobs in Switzerland. The potential that tourism has in promoting sustainable economic growth for a state like Meghalaya is enormous. Meghalaya has an absolute advantage over other North Eastern states when it comes to tourism. Many factors work in our favour. First and foremost our state is strategically located as far as tourism is concerned. A tourist coming from either West Bengal or Orissa will find it easier to travel to our state rather than Arunachal Pradesh or any other state for that matter. Secondly we’ve been blessed with pleasant weather that others can only envy. Shillong the state capital can be the perfect getaway for tourists who wants to beat the scorching heat of the plains. Even in Guwahati the summer heat can sometimes be unbearable.
Last but not the least few states in India can match the beautiful natural landscape which is bountiful in our state. A few months back when we went for training to Kolkata,the trainees coming from states like Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal showed a really keen interest in visiting our state. Many of them have heard of the natural beauty of our state and it struck me back then that the Eastern part of India is where our tourism market lies. Statistics will only confirm this fact. A colleague from Orissa who I met during that training actually visited our state recently and is keen on coming back a second time. It would be simply wishful thinking anyway to expect foreign tourists to visit our state in numbers when the infrastructure is not up to the mark. We don’t even have a full fledged airport!
We must know where our strength lies and we must find ways and means to increase our capabilities to enhance and improve our strength. Tourism is one sector which has strong linkages with other sectors in the economy and considering the huge unemployment problem our state is facing and the enormous potential that tourism has in generating employment it would only be natural that we started giving the tourism industry a serious uplift. Similarly thousands of youths from the North East are flocking to cities like Bangalore and Gurgaon to work in the BPO industry. Why can the government not attract investments from such industry by giving tax benefits or creating special economic zones in our own state? This would definitely generate crores of rupees for our revenue deficit state. Considering that young people have a higher propensity to consume the multiplier effect will surely comes to play in such a scenario. It could well be a face-saver for our financially stricken state! The policy of the new government at the Centre is to make the states financially sound and independent. Our Prime Minister achieved it while he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat so it would only be natural for him and his government to expect states like Meghalaya to do the same.
Yours etc.,
Gary M A Marbaniang,
J.S.O NSSO(FOD),
Guwahati
Questions on percentage of divorce in Meghalaya
Editor,
The report appearing in your daily captioned “2011 census reveals high divorce, seperation cases among NE women, Mizoram tops, Meghalaya stands second” (ST March 10, 2015) did not clearly spell out whether the figures were arrived at from registered marriages alone or did they include unregistered marriages as well. In matrilineal Meghalaya there is a high percentage of couples who cohabit (where a man and a woman live together and have children, without formally getting married),but are considered as man and wife. But when the man/husband walks out of the marriage, which is again very high in rural Meghalaya, it is taken for granted that because we follow the matrilineal system it is the wife’s clan (kur) who will have to take the responsibility to take care of their children and not the husband. These divorce cases in unregistered marriages have no documentary proof which makes it difficult to arrive at figures for a comparative study. But the main problem in Meghalaya, is not only the high divorce rates among registered and unregistered marriages, but the absence of maintenance that compounds the problem for the increasing number of broken families.
As mentioned above while the Khasi husband puts the responsibility for maintenance on his wife’s clan, the real hard facts of life today is that with growing materialism and high cost of living together with an equally large number of families living below the poverty line (BPL) it becomes next to impossible for the clan to look after the welfare of every clan member especially those children of divorced families. That is why we witness with every passing year more and more children are sent to the orphanages and more and more homes for orphans opening up in different parts of the state which contradict the statements of the elderly generation in the yester years that in the Khasi matrilineal society there are no orphans or Homes for the Aged because there is the kur (clan) who will look after all the clan members.
It is only when the Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act comes into effect that these problems can be dealt with to a great extent and at the same time enable us to get a reasonably correct picture with regards to the rate of divorce and single parentage in our state.
Yours etc.,
Micheal N Syiem,
Via email