Every single day there is some celebration or the other in Meghalaya. Each celebration is accompanied by music and songs. Anyone observing the state would think that everything is hunky dory and people are happy and hence have a song on their lips at any time of the day and night. But is that music a cover-up – a noise creation to drown the pain of lakhs of people who live in an abysmal state of poverty. While a few people in Shillong city and the district headquarters have become part of the many schemes initiated by the Chief Minister’s Office a large chunk in the rural outback are groping in the darkness of poverty and inadequate access to education and health care. Poverty means having no access to money and also to the facilities which the government ought to provide of which education and health care are imperative.
People are in such a state of penury that they have to line up at the houses of their MLAs and MDCs to seek monetary help to meet urgent medical expenses or to deal with other exigencies. This is because the poor have no savings for a rainy day. When they can hardly make ends meet where is the question of saving. Yet when there are economic shocks such as the sudden death of the only earning member, the family is thrown into disarray. Children can no longer continue their studies and must start earning. That’s one reason for the high school drop-out rate. About half of Meghalaya’s population is agrarian. But even today, the market linkage is weak and farmers find it difficult to connect directly with the buyers without being exploited by intermediaries. Direct connection with buyers ensures farmers receive fair prices for their produce while buyers get quality products.
There is enough research to suggest that those with greater human capital such as education, skills, training, etc. tend to be more competitive in the labour market, and as a result, will run a lower risk of experiencing poverty. But when the youth miss out on quality education and therefore are deprived of the critical human capital they tend to do just about any job which they are not adept at. The focus of the Government today should be to reach out to the youth in the rural areas. Since there is no scope of gainful employment in Meghalaya’s villages, urban migration has become the only escape from a miserable existence. There is a huge workforce of construction workers but they are listless and lack the drive that the so-called outsider demonstrates. Any contractor who wants to make profit would engage local labourers as a last resort since labour payment forms a huge chunk of the investment in construction work. Then there are others, mainly women who ply their trade at tourist destinations without as much as a training to help them understand what can sell and what cannot. They possibly earn between Rs 200-300 a day. There is an urgent need therefore to scale up economic activities and provide intensive training in order to overcome poverty.
