Work for All
Given a system that supports work, there are enough people in the state who will work. This is not another attempt at self-praise, but the increasingly assertive profession of journalism in the state is a case in point. For a state whose citizens have grown used to retiring not long after sunset, it is indeed quite a phenomenon that there are journalists slogging and chasing deadlines through the night.
Even as they put their newspapers to bed between 1 am and 2 am, and begin thinking of retiring themselves, the newspaper hawkers take the charge. By 2 am their queues start forming outside newspaper distribution centers to collect and deliver their wares to the homes of the
subscribers, so that even the earliest risers amongst the latter will be greeted by the news of events of the previous day. We are quite certain, given the direction and means to make an honest and respectable living, there will be people willing to work, even in difficult circumstances.
The proposition is extremely relevant in today's Manipur, where the population has been growing much faster than the economy can keep pace with, throwing up extraordinary number of problems, among the most weighty of which is that of unemployment. The total figure of employable unemployed registered with the employment exchange, according to the figures published earlier is in the vicinity of four lakhs.
For a small state with limited resources, this is huge. It is also clear that there is no way the government can employ them all directly. Its existing work force of approximately 70,000, is already proving to be too large, leaving little or no room for accommodating more. Of course, we do agree that the figure of those actually unemployed would be much less than four lakhs that is if employment were not to mean just being on the government's payroll, and equally, if being unemployed were to actually mean being left without any gainful work to do despite actively seeking it. The two points are interesting.
On the one hand, there are people who call themselves, as unemployed solely on the basis of their not having a government job, and on the other, there are those who do not actively seek a job but would nonetheless rush to enlist themselves in the employment exchange.
This is where the government must step in. We acknowledge that it has an obligation to look after its direct employees, but it must also not forget that apart from this, it has a larger responsibility of looking after all, employees as much as non-employees. Roughly, if its salaries obligation is to its employees, undertaking developmental works is its other contractual obligation to the rest.
To the term 'developmental work', we would like to prefix the adjective, 'imaginative'. It is true the acute financial crunch the state is in today must necessarily be making those who handle state policies myopic, with an obsessive concern with immediate problems. The challenge is, there must be ways found to extend vision.
One example will, we are sure, speak loudly. Consider how much employment the little border town of Moreh is generating. Visit the many Moreh markets in Imphal and elsewhere to make an assessment of this. Would it then not be a demonstration of far-sightedness to take up works to facilitate such and other employment centers to blossom?
(Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press)
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