Resumen de Employment and Income Generation through Wasteland Management: An Approach to Rural Development in Northeast India
Sujit Deka, Urmimala Sarma Deka
In Northeast India 84.06 per cent of people live in rural areas compared to around 72.18 per cent for India as a whole. As per 2001 census more than 54 per cent of the total number of workers in North-East India are engaged in agriculture and allied activities. Agricultural activities provide full or near-full engagement during the busy transplanting and harvesting period. But in slack season, a large number of workers remain unemployed due to the absence of operational activities in the farm sector. Unemployment is the main cause of rural poverty particularly for those who are landless, marginal farmers and landless artisans. India's north- eastern region possesses various types of land resources of which some remain unutilized such as wastelands, constituting 29.95 per cent of the total geographical area being potentially viable for sustainable development. The state-wise shares of wastelands to total wastelands of Northeast India are 25.49% in Assam, 23.34% in Arunachal Pradesh, 16.49% in Manipur, 12.61% in Meghalaya, 10.70% in Nagaland, 5.19% in Mizoram, 4.55% in Sikkim and 1.63% in Tripura. The utilization of these wasteland resources through proper and systematic management can provide livelihood opportunities to the rural poor by increasing their income through employment generation and creating assets for future.
