Job goal for Arunachal students: Change distance to villages from hours to kilometres

In remote Arunachal Pradesh, students aspire to bridge distance through education, aiming for better opportunities and development.

GUWAHATI

Distance in far-flung villages of Arunachal Pradesh is often measured by the time taken to trek or drive, often in a sturdy off-roader, down to the nearest urban centre or the district headquarters.

Children of such villages along the Myanmar border in the State’s Tirap district have a job goal — to be in positions that enable them to convert the measurement from hours or minutes to kilometres.

In 2023, Chief Minister Pema Khandu said connectivity in Arunachal Pradesh had improved vastly with 25 operational helipads and three commercial flights-ready advanced landing grounds apart from 2,838 kilometres of roads being built every year.

The terrain and the cost, however, come in the way of carving a road to remote villages close to the State’s international borders with Bhutan, Tibet, and Myanmar.

“Many students from the remote areas said they want to get into government service primarily to make their villages better,” Ira Singhal, Deputy Commissioner of Tirap, told The Hindu from district headquarters Khonsa, after conducting a career counselling session with 2,650 students from Classes 8-12.

Some of the students said they came from Moktowa about “two hours from Khonsa”, and from Lazu “some 90 minutes away”. For a few students, the session on July 5 was the first opportunity to visit an urban centre.