Our Reporter
Dimapur, March 7(EMN): Minister for PHED Jacob Zhimomi urged to be ‘courageous’ to give away land for the development of the districts, be it administrative infrastructure or for any other economic activities.
He was speaking during the inaugural programme of 5th inter-ward tournament at Chumoukedima local ground on Monday.
He said that once there is infrastructure, revenue is automatically generated and thus asked for the support and cooperation in whichever jurisdiction they require for development.
He also assured that the government would try its best to see that the youths are employed in whatever fields they aspire to pursue, but the youths have to be prepared to work hard.
He mentioned that more than 60% of the youths in the state have qualified degrees, “but when we see the number of youths who are qualified at the central level, it is very unfortunate that only one or two are qualified for public service in the exams held at the central level”.
“And also at the state level, we have constituted NSSB for grade C services and above, which means only merit can survive”, he said. He said the youths today are all qualified, and therefore even if they did not make it through merit, there are still many avenues that they can explore.
“It does not matter if you are not a government servant, there are many other avenues but you have to be prepared to work and you have to start with a humble beginning”, he advised.
‘Nagaland enjoy the same privileges with other countries but we are not paying any taxes for development from the income they earn, and so we cannot charge the government, but this is not an excuse to say that the government should not develop’, Zhimomi stated citing the example of Japan where people pay taxes to government and then the citizens can change the government if do not bring development.
The state government is surviving on the grants-in-aid given by the central government, he stated. He thus told the young generations that ‘we have to build our own state, villages or fields and harvest ourselves’.
The minister lamented that today there are different equipment to build houses but there are no Naga- builders or skilled labourers and even though there are few Naga contractors, they are employing non-Nagas, he said.
‘That is how revenue earned by our state and lots of our resources have been drained to other states,’ he added.
He further stated that many Nagas still have the traditional way of thinking that ‘only government job is the sense of security, and thus Nagaland is still a salaried economy and we are missing out on a lot of opportunities’.
He said that ‘our people prefer a government job earning INR 9-10k monthly thinking it is a huge security in life but the masons and other skilled labourers are earning INR 20-30 lakh in a few months time’.
“There is no job below standard but your hard work will be your new start-up”, he added.