Dehradun. Thousands of people from different parts of the country returned to their villages in Uttarakhand during the lockdown imposed to check the spread of coronavirus, as their hopes for a better life were dashed. However, most of them had no option but to leave home again for their livelihood as there was a lack of employment opportunities at their native place.
Deputy Chairman of the Rural Development and Migration Prevention Commission (RDMPC) S. s. Negi said that only 5-10 per cent of them are left here, most of whom are persons who did not have reliable jobs in cities.
The state, which celebrated its 22nd anniversary on November 9, still grapples with the complex problem of migration due to poor education and health infrastructure and lack of livelihood for people living in villages, especially hilly areas. Is.
Negi said at least 1,702 villages in the border state have become uninhabited as residents have migrated to urban areas in search of jobs and better education and health facilities. He said that Pauri and Almora districts were the worst affected by the migration. He said that a total of 1.18 lakh people have migrated from the villages of Uttarakhand.
Negi said, most of the migration has been due to the aspirations of leading a better life. Most of the migration was due to the search for better employment opportunities. People have also migrated due to poor education facilities, poor health infrastructure, low agricultural produce or destruction of standing crops by wild animals.
Earlier people used to migrate outside the state to big cities like Mumbai and Delhi. According to Negi, migration in recent years has been local in nature as people are migrating from villages to nearby cities, sometimes even within the same district within the state. “We are currently visiting villages in Haridwar district and found that people are migrating not only outside the state but also to different towns in the district,” he said. He said people from the villages of Haridwar are migrating to Roorkee or Bhagwanpur in the district or to Kotdwar, Srinagar or Satpuli towns in the rural district of Pauri. “The exodus is on, but the situation is not as bad as it used to be a few years back,” he said. We don’t have any concrete data to prove it yet, but things are changing rapidly.
Negi said that giving a life of work and honor to the people who returned to their villages after the lockdown was the biggest challenge of the state government. Negi expressed hope that the all-weather road project of the Union Government can be expected to give a big boost to tourism in the coming years. He said that the project is nearing completion.
