With no jobs or hope, these folks head to Goa to make a living

KARWAR: Every day, hundreds of people from Chittakula, Majali, Ghotegali, Halaga, Ulaga, Kadavad, Shejwad and other villages in the district take a train to Goa to earn a living, that too for monthly salaries of just `4,000-5,000. These villages are on the bank of Kali river and agriculture activities have almost stopped here due to backwater and salt water which have rendered hundreds of acres of land barren. To top this, the absence of any major industrial unit in the district headquarter of Karwar poses a huge challenge to generation of employment opportunities and unemployment is on the rise.

In places where agriculture is practised, villagers are finding it economically unviable due to fluctuating prices of crops like paddy and sugarcane, not to mention the unavailability of farm labour. Hence, people travel to the neighbouring state and even commute daily seeking employment. To facilitate them, a diesel multiple unit (DMU) train is specially run to Goa from here as a large number of youths and middle-aged people work at industrial areas in Vasco and Madgaon.  

Most of them work for low wages and get to spend hardly a day in a week in their village They are unhappy with the government for not setting up any industries and for not creating employment in the district.

Parashuram Gongale has completed his BCom and is working in Verna Industrial Area near Vasco for the last eight years. His family lives in Kadavad village near Karwar. He says taking a house on rent in Goa is too costly and hence he prefer to travel daily.

To create employment near Karwar, Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board acquired about 40 acres near Kadwad about two decades ago and a few industries even started functioning. But most of them shut down in a few years and only a couple of them are surviving. Locals blame the government’s indifference for the closure of the Kadwad industrial area. Also, the process of land acquisition at Mudageri was started and more than 250 acres of land was notified to set up an industrial area. But that plan did not take off.

Sagar Naik of Shirwad, who works in Madgoan, said, the government acquired land for an industrial area in Shirwad village and dozens of industries started functioning about a decade ago. But later they closed and people of Shirwad become jobless. “My younger brother works in Bengaluru and I am working in Goa for the last four years”, he added.

Low wages, high cost of living and discrimination are the main problems in Goa, but for the villagers, there is no other go. “We lost hopes on the government and no elected representative or ministers are interested in starting industries in the region. They always assure of bringing eco-friendly industries, but none have acted upon their promises,” he added.

A Day In Their Lives

• Every day, a DMU train shuttles between Karwar and Goa to facilitate those working in Goan cities
• More than 1,000 people travel to Goa for work
• Thousands of acres of agricultural land has become barren land due to salt water problem in Karwar taluk
• 40 acres of land at Kadwad industrial area has not utilised, many small scale industries shut down
• Government has not shown interest to develop industrial area at Mudageri