Brain Drain: Good talents find jobs outside - Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 19, 2010 -

Union ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) under the guidance of the ex-Union Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer had during the past several years tried to attract major investors from within the country and abroad to come and invest in the North Eastern Region with promises of making a lot of facilities available to them.

Quite a few business summits had been organised at huge costs across the seas, for instance, in the US and Thailand and also many cultural festivals, seminars, etc. had been organised in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati and Shillong for the same reason.

Our Chief Minister O Ibobi had tried at his best level to impress upon the big investors to come and explore the business opportunities in Manipur. All necessary facilities such as site, security, power, etc. will be made available to the investors, the Chief Minister had assured at all the summits and seminars that he attended.

Howsoever hard he and the DoNER might have tried to entice the big investors from within and outside the country, no one made a beeline at the state's door. It's really unfortunate, but considering the law and order situation prevailing in the state, it's not surprising at all.

The multi national companies, industrialists and big businessmen might not have fancied the idea of risking their necks in the violence-prone state by pumping crores of rupees to set up shop in Manipur, but certain other sectors quite unexpectedly rushed in to grab a lot of opportunities.

With a huge number of students estimated to be somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000, may be more, studying in different cities and towns of India and still many others studying abroad presently and thousands others studying in the state that has two Central Universities, yet another one coming up soon, Manipur, though a small state, we can proudly claim, is a mine of formidable human resources.

The literacy percentage being high, much above the national average, and most of the students bright, not a bit less compared with the students of other states, Manipur certainly produces young talents in huge number. Not just bright educationally, but also many of them are physically smart and have pleasant looks.

Demands for our young talents, both male and female, are rising in different sectors, may be MNCs, health care, defence, hotel or other service sectors in the country.

Therefore, many business groups are turning towards the North East, especially Manipur for direct recruitment in their companies. Be it nurse, air hostess, hotel management, defence service, sports or other professions, talented and promising young educated persons from Manipur are being taken in for employment by the government and private sectors outside the state.

Many recruiting agents are coming to Imphal to conduct on the spot interview for recruitment. This is a good trend in the sense that this helps lightening the state's unemployment burden to certain extent and also provides the youths of Manipur opportunity to expand scope for exploiting their professional expertise.

Moreover, apart from earning their own livelihood, the youths can certainly help improve the economy of Manipur. Though the fact remains that employment of a large number of talented youths outside the state is certainly a kind of brain drain, for now it's far better to go outside and work than remaining caught in the hopeless confusion prevailing in the state.

After all, there are no scopes for employment here in the state. However one must be extremely careful so that he/she is not duped by some unscrupulous conmen who indulge in all kinds of evil activities including collecting money as a price of the job or human/immoral trafficking. >