Need to check large scale influx : Understanding the pull factor
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 03, 2015 -
The state of apprehension is genuine.
No reason to doubt the figure furnished by the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System.
The Government too must be concerned.
The worrying part however is the plain point that no one has bothered to study why Manipur continues to attract numerous migrant workers from mainland India.
This is a point which no one, including those who have been shouting at the top of their voice that the Inner Line Permit System must be enforced in the State, has studied sincerely.
Everyone knows that the ILPS has not worked in Nagaland.
This however should be no reason to dismiss the growing fear and apprehension that the natives of the land may one day be replaced by migrant workers who have swarmed into Manipur.
As stated earlier and at the risk of repeating some points, human migration rests on the premise of the pull and push factor.
Manipur has tremendous pull factor while many parts in India have immense push factor.
Survival, this is at the core of the pull and push factors.
With no avenues to earn their livelihood labourers are bound to hunt for greener pastures and Manipur offers such a pasture.
And so it is that numerous migrant workers have set up base in Manipur down the years and here it is important to see why numerous people see the State as a favourable place to earn a living.
Unemployment is one of the major headaches for all the people here and the danger arises when one understands employment only through the prism of the white collared, salaried class.
This is what has been happening in Manipur for decades.
Numerous unemployed youth in every locality, but no one willing to take up manual labour.
Thus a vacuum is created and this is where migrant workers rush in to fill this vacuum. Unfortunate it is but no one seems to have given any thought to this.
Not that anyone should aspire to become a porter or a washer.
However a job is a job and this is something much better than whiling away one’s time gambling, drinking or indulging in some intoxicants. Why is it that almost all the hair cutters are non-natives ?
Surely not lack of man power for there are bound to be numerous able bodied young men who think nothing about lazing away their time. Same is the case with numerous other vocations.
It is this vacuum that should be filled up by the local people. Not a magic mantra but such a step can go a long way in checking the influx of migrant workers into the State.
One sensible question that comes to mind at this point is, if there are so many migrant workers, why have no corporate houses come here.
No official reasons have been spelt out so far and it is only the corporate houses which can spell out the reasons.
Time also to think and ponder why no big business houses such as the Tata or the Birla have deemed it proper to set up a manufacturing unit here.
No doubt the Government should be pressurised to see if something can be done to check the influx, yet at the same time it is also extremely important for the public to come to the point that they are also responsible for making Manipur such an attractive package for non-locals.
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