Imlisanen Jamir
As Nagaland welcomes its stranded citizens from other States, the immediate challenges to accommodate the returnees and look after their welfare amidst the pandemic has clouded the looming challenges that the State and its people are bound to face.
Chief among them is the problem of unemployment.
An already bleak employment picture in the State is set to worsen with many of the returnees being migrant workers who have either been laid off or have left their jobs due to non-payment of salaries. The unavailability of gainful employment in the State drives thousands of people from the State to seek work in other parts of the country. A lot of them work in the unorganized sector, and are not registered and nor can be surveyed accurately.
With the State set to receive more such returnees over the coming weeks and months, the challenge will be enormous. As the reality of this crisis hits, it will be a natural reaction to look to the government for solutions. But given the State Government’s current struggles to handle even the initial inflow of returnees, things look bleak.
This is an issue not exclusive to Nagaland. Assam has decided to provide job cards under the NREGS to those who returned from their workstations in the rest of the country and are sitting idle at home due to the lockdown. The Bihar government meanwhile is preparing a database of skilled and unskilled migrant workers who have returned in order to create employment for them.
There has been a consistent pitch from the Central and State political leadership to “go back to the land” as it were. This push for increasing local production and acquiring self sufficiency in the agri and allied sectors will predictably receive a major PR push from the State authorities over the coming months.
While this will give ample space for catchy slogans accompanied by the numerous meetings, workshops and seminars; we’ve seen all of that before and the results have been only marginal.
Meanwhile, a lot of returning workers will have had no experience in these sectors. Most migrant workers from the State are placed in the hospitality and service sector—an industry which is facing the brunt of the COVID-19 lockdown. And given the state of the pandemic, there is no indication that the service sector industry will pick up anytime soon.
Even if a portion of the unemployed are willing and made capable to engage in the agri and allied sector, unless the severe market linkage challenges are solved, the goal to achieve self sufficiency will remain a pipe dream.
Amidst this bleak assessment, there are opportunities however. There is a now gap in the workforce of several sectors following the exodus of many migrant workers from Nagaland. Whether people of Nagaland will grasp this opportunity remains to be seen.
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