PANJIM: Eighty volunteers of the Centre for Promoting Indian Economy (CPIE) led by four economists and six college lecturers have started a unique survey of 20 Goan villages in the hinterlands which focuses on generating jobs locally.
‘The Goa Village Project 2020’ aims to generate jobs locally within the village setup and ensure that unemployed youth have alternate part-time employment leading to earnings for basic economic family survival.
In a statement issued here, consultant economist with Tata Institute of Social Sciences and member of CPIE Norman Baretto said Goan villages can be made totally self-dependent and self-reliant. “There is an intrinsic potential to develop and generate local jobs, which unfortunately has been overlooked. It is a sad reality that many Goan youth look for easy money and quick profits. But the COVID pandemic has changed everything,” he said.
The CPIE team is first targeting the villages in the constituency of Shiroda, followed by St Cruz and Ponda.
“A total of 20 villages will be experimented on to start with, and hope to offer around 500 alternative forms of decent employment to Goan youth in the first phase of this project which has been named “The Goa Village Project 2020”,” said Baretto.
“Our target is to generate around 20 tertiary jobs per village, which can provide a monthly income of Rs 10,000 at the bare minimum,” he said.
“If all goes well, and the youth of Goa take it up willingly, the project will generate 5000 jobs by March 2021 in the entire State,” Baretto added.
The Goa Village Project is funded internally by donations from well-wishers and patrons of the Centre for Promoting Indian Economy. There is no government funding and this is a non-political, social oriented venture.
