Local path to prosperity

The state must create opportunities for people willing to stay home and invest in local enterprises.

Officials at the Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives in Sudurpashchim Province are reported to have faced an elephantine problem recently: They have to sift through 80,000 applications and identify a tiny percentage of the applicants to support them in their agro-entrepreneurial endeavours. The agriculture subsidy programme targeted at returnee migrants in the province aims to support only 5,000 applicants. The ministry's Rs150 million is insufficient to address the subsidy needs of the huge number of people who applied.