Unemployment is making youngsters in Goa desperate and forcing them to "clean toilets in countries abroad", state assembly speaker Pratapsing Rane said on Monday.
Speaking to reporters at the assembly complex, Rane, a former chief minister of Goa over a decade through the 1980s-90s, said the flight of special economic zones (SEZ) from the state had hurt job prospects of Goan youngsters.
"Do you want our boys and girls to clean toilets in countries abroad? Boys and girls should get respectable work. The educated boys and girls are getting desperate... they are going abroad and cleaning toilets," Rane said, recalling an instance during a foreign visit when he encountered a Goan expat swabbing a toilet.
Goa has a sizeable expat population, especially in the Gulf region, where several thousand Goans are working in the hospitality and service industry across all levels.
Rane claimed that a decision taken by the incumbent Congress government to cancel land allotments made to SEZ promoters in 2007, could have only aggravated the problem of unemployment.