Spur to militancy?

employment
• Agriculture does not create enterpreneurs that can handle a monetised economy. Urban populations surge as people move to cities loking for options (see graphs)

Urban jungle
• The educated youth moves to towns. But education fails them. Assam is worst-hit, with 1,486,600 registered unemployed in 2001. That is 61.5 per cent more than the rest of the six states. The seven states put together had only 2,300 unemployed capable of administrative, executive and managerial work



Money is to fuel...
...energy security and not employment. 44.64 per cent of all funds go to petroleum sector
Products Number
of units		 Investment
(Rs in lakh)		 Percentage
of share
Petroleum 2 56,600.00 44.64
Tea 210 19,611.78 15.47
Steel fabrication 333 15,396.16 12.14
Food & Beverages 78 7,947.88 6.27
Pan masala and others 70 7,851.41 6.19
Cement 35 7,832.99 6.18
Plastics/Polymers 28 1,722.46 1.36
Jute 6 971.80 0.77
Printing stationary 20 826.12 0.65
Rubber products 20 728.80 0.65
Coal 3 645.46 0.57
Paints 5 391.4 0.31
Others 123 6,260.48 4.94
TOTAL 646 126,788.64 100.00



investment
• The government believes pouring money in is the panacea. Between August, 1999 and May, 2002 it invests Rs 1,267.87 crore. This generates a mere 18,007 jobs

• Guwahati is where the buck stops, literally. So Assam gets most of the investments. Other states’ capacity to invest is minimal and the industrial sector unwilling



Black hole
for all investments into the Northeast is Assam
State Number
of units		 Investment
(Rs in crore)		 Percentage
of share		 Employment
(numbers)
Assam 511 1,038.08 81.88 12,827
Meghalaya 49 190.24 0.15 4,244
Nagaland 48 19.63 1.55 439
Arunachal 10 10.29 0.81 140
Tripura 28 9.63 0.76 357
TOTAL 646 1,267.87 100 18,007



Source: SK Mishra 2002, ‘AGRICULTURE IN THE NORTH-EASTERN REGION’, Department of Economics, north east hill univeristy, Shillong.

Anon 2003, Basic Stastics for Northeast, North East Council, Shillong
Publication Date: 
30/08/2004
Down to Earth
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Tags:
Agriculture, Unemployment, Statistics