Ezung

year are better health care facility, multiple job opportunities and education. The

state since its inception in 1963 has seen an increase of urban population by 11 times

as shown in the table below.

Table 1: Population by residence in Nagaland

Year

Population

Urban population

Rural population

1971

516449

51394

465055

1981

774930

120234

654696

1991

1209546

208223

1001323

2001

1990036

342787

1647249

2011

1978502

570966

1407536

Source: Statistical Hand Book of Nagaland 2012

The rapid migration from rural areas to urban centres in search of better jobs

other than agricultural activities and better education facilities has lead to decline in

work force population in rural areas. What is left of the population in most of the

rural areas, excepting those villages within the periphery of the town areas, are the

children and aged persons. Thus, there exist shortage of agricultural labourer in

most of the rural areas which in turn lead to low agricultural production and the

supply side of agriculture goods are met by goods from other state. The reason for

low agriculture production and migration from rural areas is because agricultural

entrepreneurship has not taken its root among the villagers due to bad and insufficient

physical infrastructure as well as inadequate education regarding commercialisation

of agriculture products.

The Inner Line Permit system under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations was

introduced 1873 and is stillin vogue in the state of Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal

Pradesh. The aim was to ensure that ethnic tribes of these three states could maintain

their distinct identity and at the same time promote their culture and tradition. However,

during the recent years there seems to be a lackadaisical implementation on the part

of the law enforcing agencies. Thus, the numbers of migrant casual workers entering

the state keep rising day by day.

Conclusion

The contribution of migrant workers both skilled and unskilled to development in

the state is commendable. The Naga’ s whose model of development was based on

closed village economy could not have fare well in the path of development had it

not been for the migrants who left their own home for greener pastures. Their

contribution to modern education has an immense impact on the society that the

state now has an average literacy rate higher than the national average. With the

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