By H H Mohrmen
A story in the Shillong Times which reported that for 2550 vacancies, the recruitment board of the police department had received a staggering number of 78,000 applications, was on the expected lines but nevertheless upsetting. Now this numbers does not reflect the real numbers of young job aspirants in the state, because not all young people are interested in working in the police force. It is therefore safe to say that the numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. So the question arises as to whether the state government has any policy to create employment for this huge population of young unemployed or semi employed youths?
Now, since the Prime Minster announced the Skill India program, we have several institutions which provide skill training to young people. Yes providing skill training to the youths is one solution to the vexed problem, but what kind of skills we are going to provide is another question. Isn’t it true that most of these skills providers only train young people for jobs outside the state? While it is good that young people who are trained in skills like hospitality, BPOs, front desk reception, salesmanship etc., are now well placed in states outside the region, but it has only solved a fraction of the problem.
It is a welcome change that some of our young people are now working outside the state, but we still have a huge population of young people who are reluctant or not ready to move outside their home state for jobs. And taking our tribal culture into consideration, one should not be surprise to know that given a chance, most of us would still like to be close to our own family and community where our kith and kin are than living elsewhere far away from our near and dear ones. It also true that there are no dearth of jobs in the state if we can only provide the right skills so that young people can engage in the jobs which are available locally.
The recent move made by the District Administration Nongstoin in collaboration with the District Basin Development Unit West Khasi hills to train the youths in a certain skill is a step in the right direction. The DC’s office in collaboration with the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM), Shillong are going to provide training on culinary skills to thirty youths in the district. The post on the DC Nongstoin’s Facebook page says that the idea is to create rural entrepreneurs in the entire district and facilitate them in setting roadside eateries, canteens and restaurants along the national highway and tourist spots. This is not only an out of the box thinking but it is also being realistic. Knowing what kind of skills are needed to promote and for how many is important because we don’t want West Khasi Hills to later be populated with unemployed cooks or chefs.
The point is we need to estimate the numbers youths to be trained for a particular skill and how much the local market can absorb because if we have too many motor mechanics, hairdressers, tailors etc., then we will again have unemployment. The need of the hour is to train youths with skills that can provide them immediate job opportunities in the local area or its vicinity and we have ample job avenues if we only care to look and study the prevailing situation.
We already have examples where agriculture products are aggregated to enable the farmers to bargain on the prize of their products, the tomato collection centres at Wahiajer, Mookyndur in West Jaintia hills promoted by District Horticulture Department West Jaintia Hills are cases in point. Increasing agricultural production can help create employment in the state and open up opportunities for values addition to the products. Value addition of products is another avenue which can create employment for the young people and again we already have models of individuals, SHGs and even Cooperative Societies which have ventured into this domain and are supported by their respective DBDU, NGOs and line departments so that they were able to create their own enterprises, market their finished products and earn their livelihoods from the activity.
It is difficult to say whether it is the agro or livestock sector which can create more employment avenues for the young people in the state, but one thing is certain; both can generate numerous employments opportunities in the rural areas. It is a known fact that all the meat we consume except for goats’ meat come from outside the state, so rearing animals like pigs, chicken to cattle are viable livelihood alternatives, and the markets for which are readily available. The government only needs to train young people to start farming on a commercial scale because keeping few animals is not commercially viable for the youth.
Of course rearing cattle the traditional way is no longer viable because all the kids are in schools now and there are no more boys left to shepherd the flocks. Hence people need to come up with new ideas to rear cattle because we cannot stop eating beef and no power on earth can stop us from eating beef too.
Staying with beef, recently I came across a news report in the press which is a story about the UP government shutting down undocumented slaughtering houses in the state. It was only then that I realised that meat processing is a billion dollar business in the country. My point is that Meghalaya can make a fortune out of UP’s misfortune. Providing skill training on meat processing to the youths of the state is another avenue for employment generation and there is a huge market even within the state.
We have already seen that tourism is beginning to be a sector which can provide employment to hundreds and thousands of young and no so young people, hence we need to provide training on skills related to the sector. Of course training on various aspects of hospitality related to the business is being covered by many skill training providers, but we are yet to see institutions to train youths to be tourist guides, managing B&Bs or Home Stays or even training on basic etiquettes to those directly related to tourism business and the taxi drivers, on good public relation skills.
The state is also blessed with diverse geographical conditions which are suitable for many tourism related activities. For example Pioneer Adventure Tours has already started scuba diving and zip lining in certain places; Campfire Trails led by Zorba Laloo and Aaron Laloo is into kayaking and trekking and Meghalaya Adventurers Association (MAA) is into caving but the list is certainly not exhaustive. Again we read in the press recently that despite all the bad publicity, wildlife tourism is gaining momentum in the Garo hills, and activities like rock climbing, mountain biking, hand gliding, mountain motor challenges and even trekking are yet to be exploited to their fullest potential.
There is no dearth of jobs in the State; the problem is that we are ruled by one-eyed kings who have the capacity to see in one direction and one thing only. They think that job only means the government sector and when there is a vacancy in any government department they will fight among themselves to see that only the children and the wards of their supporters get the job.
For serious contenders there is no dearth of financial support either and we are not talking about PMEGP or other government schemes. There the three types of MUDRA loans and then we have the Start up and Stand up India which funds entrepreneurs which start Greenfield enterprises in the region. The need of the hour is not to enrol young people to get trained on certain skills just for the sake of meeting the target, but we need to look at the availability of jobs in the local markets. That is the way forward for Meghalaya!