RONO HILLS, 16 Dec: The 22nd annual conference of North Eastern Economic Association (NEEA), which was organized by the Centre for Development Studies, department of Economics, Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU), concluded on Wednesday.
In his valedictory address, former vice-chancellor of RGU and former member of the 13th Finance Commission prof. Atul Sarma expressed concern over the vulnerability of migrant workers during the pandemic period.
“The suffering of the migrants during the pandemic was really painful,” he said and asked the scholars to study the issue related to migrants seriously and come out with appropriate policy prescriptions so as to avoid such a situation in future.
Prof. Sarma also called for strengthening of health care infrastructure, expansion of the supply of trained health care workers, empowerment of local level government, judicious utilization of natural resources and digitization of the economy to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic.
On the issue of migration, he opined that migration is unavoidable as people are forced to migrate due to income gaps and other push factors. Therefore, he called for building up of a system of social security to avoid the misery of migrant workers.
He also highlighted the issue of declining fertility rate and inequality in fertility rates across Indian states.
“In most developed countries fertility rate has reached below replacement level, while in India it is fairly good and so India is poised to get the benefit of demographic dividend,” he added. Prof. Sarma argued that in order to derive the benefits of demographic dividend, the country should focus on skill formation and human resource development.
In his address, pro vice-chancellor of RGU prof. Amitava Mitra emphasized on the need for dissemination of knowledge and research output.
He urged the organizers to publish the conference proceedings in the form of a book and asked the scholars to improve their papers and publish in reputed journals.
The special lecture was delivered by prof. Barbara Harriss-White of University of Oxford, UK on the topic ‘Movement and development: societies, market and state-putting Arunachal centre stage.’
In her lecture, prof. M. P Bezbaruah stressed on ethnic territorial shifts, in-migration, stateless people, sharecroppers, outmigration of APST, remittances and investment. She argued that ‘movement of mobile production factors/forces is so deeply socially embedded that the concept of market is compromised.’
Two keynote addresses were delivered by prof. Deepak Kr. Mishra from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and prof. S. Mahendra Dev vice-chancellor IGIDR, Mumbai and Gopal Bordoloi Memorial lecture was delivered by Dr. Dilip Ratha, lead economist, World Bank.
Earlier, joint organizing secretary Dr. Ashi Lama briefed about the technical sessions and informed that a total of 63 papers were presented on various themes.
Prof. Homeswar Goswami, president of NEEA gave away the best paper award to Rituporna Dutta and Kashmiri Das.
At the end, general body meeting of NEEA unanimously elected prof. Amitava Mitra as its new president for two-year term, according to a release.
