Kohima, March 23 (EMN): The second sitting of the ongoing 15th session of the 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Thursday saw an introspection of the recent fallout of the elections to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and the anticipation of resolution to the problems faced by the State and its people today.
Participating in the motion of thanks to the Governor’s address, MLA and deputy chair of State Planning Board Kuzholuzo Nienu said the events which followed the recent ULB issue has brought a lot of shame, pain, law and order problem as well as also loss of lives.
“As leaders, let us not be discouraged, because every mistake is an opportunity for us to learn something new. I believe if we have learnt our lessons then we have all become one step wiser,” the MLA said. He maintained that as responsible leaders, the representatives of the people were responsible for whatever happened. “We have failed our duties. We have failed to allow peace to prevail in the state,” Nienu admitted while remarking that the recent events were the result of an accumulation of problems over the times.
First, he said the government of the day since 2003 had given too much importance to the NGOs that they eventually tried to overtake the government. Then he said, a part of the blame was also to be made on the opposition-less government- because there was no opposition to raise questions or oppose the government, the NGOs or someone had to play the opposition role. He pointed out that it was also due to the unprecedented rise of unemployment problem that is prevalent in the State today.
“This is also due to strong anti-incumbency factor that we have created, and also due to the complacency mood of the government and leaders, and not feeling the pulse of the people,” he said.
The MLA felt that years of frustrations put together has given rise to mobocracy where mob had controlled the whole situation and went out of control.
On unemployment, he said Nagas use the term ‘educated unemployed’ but if one was truly educated, he questioned how can he or she be unemployed. He felt that the unemployment problem occurred because Nagas only want to reach for white coloured jobs and not explore odd jobs.
“Lets us not encourage our youth on government jobs anymore. We are about nearly 200 percent above the normal ratio of government employees that our State has in comparison to other states. At this rate, no matter how big the budget is, it will not be able to sustain us,” Nienu stated, while advocating for encouraging the youth into private sectors, entrepreneurship and corporate sectors.
Talking about the events that unfolded from the ULB issue, minister Yitachu said there should be engagement to resolve any issues that concern the public. He felt that the ‘good intention of the government was misconstrued’, however, in view of the government extending invitation to all the stakeholders to sit across the table and deliberate the differences of opinions, he hoped the confusion will be removed and the State and its people would move towards progress.
On the education front, the minister said the State has more schools than required and has enough trained teachers, but the only thing that is needed is quality education. He said the mindset of the people to create schools to create employment opportunity and not to educate the children must be removed.
Minister CL John contradicted to the idea of concentrating on quality education, saying that the Nagas need ‘practical education’ more than mere degrees. He also called upon professionals to share practical knowledge and technical know-how to the youth so that they may learn hands-on and not just theories.
MLA Mmhonlumo Kikon pointed out that the Governor made a positive statement calling the people of the State to participate in the initiative of the State government. While acknowledging that the government was trying its best to facilitate and prepare the youths to get into the job market in private sector, he highlighted the need to take some corrective measures in the government sector.
He said the State government has already taken the initiatives to instruct all the departments to prepare data for what is called the Personal Information Management System (PIMS). “It will make available all vacancies available in the State in the government departments. This will enable the government to easily calculate the vacancies which will be approved annually,” he stated.
