70-odd year old lady Fatima Fernandes from Mapusa is waiting for her son to come back this Christmas, he had promised last time but never came.
Her wait has become long as her 28-year son who left Goa in 2015 for Bahrain, hasn’t been back for three years now.
Fatima is alone, sick and has nobody to look after but does not feel her son did anything wrong.
“What would he do here? same old friends, no job, he tried his hand at many places but the salary was meagre,” she told Herald with wet eyes.
What Fatima really meant was that the successive governments had failed to create jobs which would allow our youth stay back.
The recent comments by the Congress senior leader has added insult to injury as not many leave the country out of choice.
The comments of Mr Rane were uncalled for, especially, from a leader who has served the state for six times as the chief minister.
Hence, he is equally or more than that responsible for the Goans exodus to the other parts of the globe including Portugal.
What is surprising is that even nearly 60 years after achieving liberation from the Portuguese rule, Goa still has an unemployment figure of 1.2 lakh youth. Shocking isn’t it?
Yes, many of the locals have been dependent on mining industries but places like Salcete, Bardez and Tiswadi has no mining hence the dependence on mining is minimal. The unemployed youth of these three talukas, frustrated with no sign of opportunities, have opted for foreign countries for employment.
Herald inquiries reveal there are 1,21,424 youth registered with the employment exchanges in Panjim and Margao (64,591 males and 56833 females).
Who is responsible for the situation? Is it the successive governments? Or Mr Rane who has been the CM six times?
Right from Bahausaheb Bandodkar days to Manohar Parrikar now, the youth have been looking out for opportunities and sensing no chance they have taken up the extreme step of surrendering the passport for Portuguese citizenship.
“It is one of the most painful decision one makes while surrendering the citizenship. Mr Rane won’t understand the pain the people go through. You are giving away your right, your nationality but that is out of compulsion and not out of choice,” said Sylvester D’Souza from Arpora, settled in UK.
Another person holding Portuguese passport Denzil Fernandes from Saligao says, “if Rane had to give us employment we would have no reason to leave the country.”
“Yes we do cleaning jobs, but that is purely your failure Mr Rane to give employment to youth and not ours,” he said.
CONTRIBUTION TO STATE GDP
While making the comment about “toilet cleaners” Rane has forgotten that the Goan diaspora living abroad makes a significant contribution to the State’s economy.
While mining was contributing about Rs 1800cr to the State’s economy by way of Royalty, the Goan diaspora accounts for about Rs 1000 cr annually in form of remittances.
The total remittances in Goa are estimated to be above Rs 1000 cr of which Rs 450 cr has been received directly by households as household remittances.
A study by governments own agency NRI Commission, reveals Christian households received 71% of remittances although their share in total population is only 26%.
Although the total household remittances are as high as Rs 450 cr not only households have benefited from this but also the State. With the emigration rate 16.1% and the proportion of household 12%, only 7.8% of Goa’s households received any money as remittances from abroad.
SDtudy further says, 19.5% of Christian households received remittances compared to 2.6% of Hindu families.
More than 80 % of the households that received remittances used the money for daily subsistence. One third of them used it for meeting the educational expenses of the family members. One forth used it to pay back debts.
More than a quarter of the households deposited some of the remittances in banks.
Remittances to Goa have a significant effect on economy. Remittances form 6.3% of the State GDP and one third of the revenue receipt and 6 per cent of revenue expenditure.
According to study, one fifth of the households have used remittances for the education of children, thereby contributing to the improvement of the quality of human resources at the household level in Goa. Interestingly 72% of the emigrant households visited private hospitals for treatment of their ailments compared to just 55% among non-emigrant households.
This is also reflected in the average cost of consultation, transportation and cost of medicines. For instance, the return emigrant household spends Rs 2,178 for the ailments compared to just 1,229 by non-migrant household.
Emigration has indeed caused increased consumption of modern consumer durables and raised the standard of living of Goa households, particularly those with migrants.
Is this not contribution to the economy Mr Rane?
Unemployment
Unemployment rate in Goa is 8.9 % (7.2 among males and 13.2 among females). It is higher amongst emigrants before migration and return emigrants.
Goa Migration study
The Study says that aalthough a small state, Goa is said to have a vast international diaspora. Goans are considered a highly mobile population as they are found the world over and it would be difficult to name a country without a Goan community. This is a general understanding among most scholars in the State of Goa.
This general understanding about the high mobility of Goans was perhaps true to great extent in the past for few talukas of the state, especially during the Portuguese period.
As per a study the number of emigrants from Goa who maintain their roots in Goa is just 56000 persons or 16 per 100 households.
The number of emigrants who have returned to Goa are just 19000. Only 12% of households in Goa have an emigrant living abroad and just 4 % of the households have return emigrant.
Emigration from Goa is highly concentrated with respect to origin, both geographically and culturally.
One taluka out of 11 in the State namely Salcete accounts for 50% of emigrant households, and one religious group out of several in the State – the Christians – accounts for 74% of emigrant households from the State. This is an extreme concentration.
However, Goan emigrants are well dispersed all over the world. The Goa Migration Study in its survey of 718 emigrant households, has found Goans in 43 countries of the world but the actual number of countries could be much more.
About 56 % of Goan emigrants are in Gulf region. About 13% are in Europe, 11% in South and South East Asia and 10 % are in North America.
One unique feature of Goan emigrants is that about 7% of them are working on ships.
In recent decades the destination of emigrants from Goa has been shifting in favour of gulf region.
The proportion of emigrants who went to the Gulf region has increased from 50% among those who went abroad before the year 2000 to 62% among those who migrated after 2000.
