Webinar on employment & rural development held at Sapatgram College

A CORRESPONDENT

DHUBRI: The Department of Economics of Sapatgram College under the aegis of IQAC organized a national webinar in collaboration with Assam College Librarians' Association on "Employability with Rural Development: The New Normal" recently.

Praveen Jha, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Professor Archana Sharma, former head of the Department of Economics, Gauhati University and Professor Saumya Chakraborty, Department of Economics, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan participated as resource persons.

Professor Anil Bhuimali, vice-chancellor, Raiganj University, West Bengal participated in the webinar as chairperson and inaugurated the webinar. In his inaugural speech he said, 'fury of the pandemic provides the context for rebirth and reform in the economic policy' and wished that the discussions would bring out some concrete measures.

Dr. D. K. Adhikary, president, governing body of the college expressed his satisfaction to be the chief guest of the webinar and wished success of the same. Addressing the session via video link, Professor Praveen Jha said the emerging scenario has exposed the glaring reality of India's informal sector.

Besides, the pathetic plight of daily wage-earners, migrant labourers that have been unfolded during the lockdown period, raised few fundamental questions on efficacy and outcome of economic reforms in the country on the theoretical underpinning of the philosophy of neo-liberal economy.

Hence he concluded by saying that in the absence of policy autonomy rural economy cannot be revamped because we are a country driven by markets. Delivering on the theme, Professor Archana Sharma spoke about the deplorable condition of migrants and stressed that government should create employment opportunities to them by clustering the rural and agricultural cooperatives.

Professor Saumya Chakraborti suggested that the languishing economy might get some respite if government releases capital buffers to the migrants.

However, he also maintained that there should be linkage between the farm and non-farm sectors for the rural development.

Earlier, Dr. Rajeshwar Prasad Singh, Principal, Sapatgram College welcomed all the 350 plus participants and all the dignitaries taking part in the webinar. Dr. G. K. Saha, Organizing Secretary of the webinar explained the objective and hoped to have some logical solutions to mitigate the crisis.

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