Weaning away youths from militancy
NEW DELHI: Meghalaya Sports and Youth Affairs Minister, Zenith Sangma urged the Centre to come to the aid of the Hill State in its endeavour to engage its youths in productive pursuits rather than leaving them to be swayed away by militant outfits.
Speaking at the two-day Conference of Ministers of States/UTs in charge of Youth Affairs and Sports here on Sunday Sangma said that the Meghalaya Government, with its limited resources, is trying its best to channelize the potential of its youths in a constructive manner to ensure that they don’t fall into the hands of militants who offer work and easy money.
The Minister, however, pointed out that providing employment to the growing number of youths is a gigantic task for the state government and lack of private sector investment only adds to the problems of the Hill State.
“Sharing borders with Bangladesh and neighbouring disturbed states adds to the chances of the unemployed youths falling prey to the temptations (of joining militant groups),” he said.
Meanwhile, he informed that Meghalaya on its part has implemented the National Youth Policy 2014 and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan in which the Central Government invested over Rs. 90,000 crore per annum for youth development.
The main thrust of the Policy is to use the potential of youth to empower India, by creating productive youth force in the sphere of education, health, employment, skill development and sports, he said adding that the National Youth Policy 2014 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan scheme will benefit the youths of Meghalaya living in far flung areas of the state.
Sangma also demanded that the Ministry should continue to help the North Eastern states on a 90:10 basis as was done earlier.
He also pleaded that the minimum criteria of acquiring six acres of land for a sports complex should be changed in case of Meghalaya which has a complex land tenure system.
Meanwhile, the Union Finance, Corporate Affairs and I &B Minister Arun Jaitley in his speech suggested that concentration on sports of core competence such as Hockey, Wrestling, Archery, Badminton, Boxing and shooting etc can produce better results for the country in international sports events like Olympics.
Speaking at the Inaugural session, Minister of State (I/C) Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbanand Sonowal said that the Union budget has provided funds for innovative schemes like setting up National Sports University at Manipur. He said, Manipur is the nursery of sports talent and has given many internationals and Olympians and this will go on a long way in promoting sports in the North Eastern Region.
Sonowal said, it is extremely important to develop sports infrastructure and support sports activities at grassroots level. Towards this end, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan (RGKA) was introduced in 2014-15 to build a sports complex in every Block, in a phased manner, over a period of five years. He said that with active support of States, this Scheme will pick up pace in the coming years. Sonowal solicited the views of the Ministers of Sports from States and UTs for effective implementation of RGKA from 2015-16 onwards.