With an aim to make our Goan villages self-dependent and self-reliant, a unique initiative has been brewing up within the state. The ‘Goa Village Project 2020’ as it is called, will aim to generate jobs locally within our Goan village ecosystems itself.
Armed with 80 volunteers from the Centre for Promotion of Indian Economy (CPIE), the survey – which will be initially conducted across 20 villages in Goa – is led by four economists and six college professors.
The village survey within Goa’s hinterlands will aim to create job opportunities for the unemployed youth and also ensure that they have part-time alternate employment, in turn ensuring that basic family needs are sustained.
The Goa Village Project 2020 hopes that at least 500 alternate forms of decent employment to the Goan youth can be generated in the first phase of this project. The survey will be targeting 20 villages across the state, initially beginning in the Shiroda constituency. St.Cruz and Ponda areas will then be followed.
Norman Barretto, a consultant economist with Tata Institute of Social Sciences and also a CPIE member said that their target will be to create 20 tertiary jobs per village, which can in turn provide a monthly income of Rs 10,000 at the bare minimum.
He also said that this special initiative will ensure that villages are self-reliant, and also provide them the potential for creating jobs locally.
“There is an intrinsic potential to develop and generate local jobs, which unfortunately has been overlooked. It is a sad reality that much Goan youth look for easy money and quick profits. But the Covid pandemic has changed everything,” Norman said.
If everything goes as per plans, the Goa Village Project 2020 will generate 5000 jobs across the state by March 2021.
The whole mission – supported through donations from well-wishers and regulars from CPIE – is a complete non-political movement and is socially oriented to ensure Goan villages and its youth are able to make a living, especially at a time of the pandemic situation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in several tourism-oriented ventures shutting down, and as such, Goan youth, are now more open to accepting other simpler forms of self-employment to ensure their family needs can be met.
For many youths, job unavailability has forced them to do other odd-jobs across the state, and as such, this Goa Village Project 2020 initiative will look to rekindle hope within many to help sustain livelihoods across the state’s remote hinterlands.
