Vijayawada: After the state government took agriculture lands from the farmers in the 29 villages of the Amaravati capital region, the locals became unemployed irrespective of their age. Both landless people and those who held land for decades also have become jobless.
Due to lack of revenue-generating ways for their survival, more than two lakh farmers, workers and other labourers in the region have been eagerly waiting for capital construction works, in view of employment opportunities. On the other hand, it was proved that the concept of skill development offered by the state government utterly failed in providing employment to the locals. In fact, the government provided skill development to some of the unemployed youth of the region, but no one got employment through this programme. On the other hand, the youth who joined for skill development programme staged protests at all the CRDA offices located in both Krishna and Guntur districts, recently.
Karumanchi Indraneel, an unemployed youth from Krishnayapalem, stated that they could not get employment at their villages as they could before the land was taken. He added that though some of the farmers have been running nurseries at the villages, they are giving minimum wages which are not sufficient for a whole family’s survival.
Mr P. Srimannarayana, an activist in the region, said that the youth have been forced to find work at Vijayawada, Guntur and other areas. Guntur district industrial development general manager Y. Naga Sundaram said that they have been trying to provide employment at various industries.
Farmers not keen on state programme:
The state government suggested 143 entrepreneurship activities with an estimated investment of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 75 lakh, depending on their investment capacity. But none of the farmers showed interest to start these projects.
The state government failed in creating awareness and providing entrepreneurial skills to the locals. If the government could convince the locals to start these projects, then there might be some employment opportunities for them.
Food and beverages, textilse, non-metallic minerals, auto and auto components, rubber and plastics, pharmaceutical industry, electronics, basic and fabricated metals, tourism, aerospace, logistics, IT/ITes and aquaculture have been identified as key industrial sectors in the CRDA region for the locals.
So far, only 30 members were admitted to the CRDA Entrepre-neurship Development Programme (CEDP), which is aimed at training the youth in the area. The first batch of the training for the aspirants started a couple of weeks ago with 30 members, said R. Pradeep Naidu, assistant manager, APCRDA.
Though there are applications from aspirants for the second batch, budget was not sanctioned, said T. Venkateswara Rao, manager APCRDA.
