SHILLONG: The declining public investment in rural sector has made a negative impact on the social and economic lives of the people as wealth remains concentrated in urban sectors.
Speaking to a section of the media, Agriculture Production Commissioner KN Kumar said, “Over the years, public investment in rural areas has come down and it is coming down regularly, except in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), there has not been major investment in the country.”
Kumar pointed out that there would not be any migration to urban areas had public investment in rural areas increased. “If basic conditions of life in rural areas are improved, then nobody would want to leave good, fresh air and wonderful climate and come into this kind of pollution and congestion,” he said.
Due to the declining public investment, the wealthy urban people set their eyes on rural agricultural lands which in turn leave many farmers without land.
“Wealth is generated in urban areas and is being invested in rural areas by urban people, that is dispossessing and alienating the small and marginal farmers who do not have enough money and they can easily be seduced into believing that this is the kind of money that can take care of their lives,” he said. The farmers who are bereft of land turn to wage earning and MGNREGA. As one of the pointers, Kumar said in 2013, the state had 4.26 lakh job cardholders and by 2018, it jumped to 5.6 lakh. In the absence of agricultural land, their option is MGNREGA.
“Because our state is having disproportionately large number of job cards, there is something wrong, we need to understand socially and economically,” he said. On the other hand, the setting up of institutes such as Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship, Meghalaya Institute of Governance, Meghalaya Institute of Natural Resources Management have build up manpower and human resources within their respective domain.
