PM launches new employment scheme

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’, an employment scheme for migrant workers, saying that during lockdown the talent from cities returned to villages and it will now give a boost to development in rural areas.

Talking about infrastructure development of villages with the help of this scheme, Modi said that for the first time Internet was being used more in villages than in cities and now work to increase the speed of Internet was being undertaken.

Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’ will primarily focus on six states to where maximum migrant workers have returned. This massive rural public works scheme will empower and provide a livelihood for 125 days to the returnee migrants. 

The programme was launched from Telihar village in Beldaur block of Bihar’s Khagaria district.

The programme will be a coordinated effort by 12 different ministries, including rural development, panchayati raj, road transport and highways, mines, drinking water and sanitation, environment, railways, petroleum and natural gas, new and renewable energy, telecom and agriculture.

A total of 116 districts with more than 25,000 migrant workers each across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha have been chosen for the campaign and includes 27 aspirational districts

This campaign of 125 days will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide employment to migrant workers on one hand and create infrastructure in the rural regions of the country on the other, with a resource envelope of Rs 50,000 crore.

The major objectives of the initiative include:

* Provide livelihood opportunities to returning migrants and similarly affected rural citizens.

* Saturate villages with public infrastructure and create livelihood opportunities — roads, housing, anganwadis, panchayat bhavans, various livelihood assets and community complexes among others.

* The basket of a wide variety of works will ensure that each migrant worker is able to get an opportunity of employment according to his skill, in the coming 125 days. 

* The programme will also prepare for expansion and development of livelihoods over a longer term.

The ministry of rural development is the nodal ministry for this programme.

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