Nagaland: 100 returnees to get financial help; registration begins

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 28 (EMN): In what would help migrant returnees get back on their feet after being rendered jobless due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the advisor for Industries and Commerce, Imnatiba, launched a portal for livelihood generation programme for returned migrant workers at the Secretariat Conference Hall in Kohima on Monday.

Funded by the North Eastern Council (NEC), the programme aims at selecting 100 beneficiaries out of 15,000 migrant workers who have returned from outside the state due to the pandemic.

While launching the portal, the advisor said the programme seriously focuses on the sustainable programmes where returned migrant workers can generate livelihood that can contribute to the families and to the society as a whole.

After going through multiple screenings, the department will select 100 beneficiaries for the programme out of 15,019 registered returnees (workers only). Further, the selected candidates will be given some seed money to start their own units in the state.

According to him, despite having some of the finest schemes and initiatives, people were not really coming forward to avail the privileges.

Through the programme, he hoped that the selected beneficiaries ‘will make the best use of re-skilling and seed money given to them’.

‘If we can make some progress out of this initiative, the government will take more similar steps as well as NEC will support it. It all depends on how progressively we take ahead this kind of programmes,’ he said.

Director of Industries and Commerce, K Hokishe Assumi, informed that the portal will be opened for registration immediately after the launching. He said that the department is expecting a good number of returnees to register.

He also informed that NEC had released INR 2.4 crore for this programme. As for the seed money, he said they are still working on how much to give to the beneficiaries.

‘The NEC has fixed certain amount for the beneficiary. However, once the fixed amount is implemented based on NEC guideline, it will not be able to accommodate many migrant returnees. Therefore, the department is trying to accommodate more returnees,’ he added.

At the later stage, the department will initiate capacity building and re-skilling programmes for the selected beneficiaries, he said.

There are about 27,000 returnees in total. Commissioner and Secretary Kekhrievor Kevichusa said that the programme will be a positive step for those who had lost their jobs. He admitted that the programme is not enough and hoped that the department would reach out to more workers. 

‘This is the first step that the department is taking and is excited to be doing something out of the box,’ he said.

Kevichusa said that the programme was completed on a short notice. ‘We just had two weeks to prepare the whole programme,’ he said.

It will take up to December for the department to select the beneficiaries, he added.

The re-skilling and training of service and manufacturing sector will be given to the selected beneficiaries. The service sectors include delivery and courier, food and beverages, residential healthcare activities, video production, motion picture, sound recording and music publishing activities, repair of computers, personal and household goods.

The manufacturing sectors include manufacturing of cattle, poultry and other animal feeds, food products, apparel and textiles, handicraft and handloom etc.

Eligibility criteria for livelihood generation programme

1. The returnee should be an indigenous migrant worker from Nagaland.

2. The returnee should have registered with the state Covid-19 returnees portal.

3. The migrant worker returnee should have reached Nagaland via special train, airway, or roadway between May 22, 2020 and August 6, 2020.

4. The migrant worker returnee should have “release” documents or certificate from the assigned quarantine centres.