Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched an employment scheme, ‘Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan’, for migrant workers, saying it will now give a boost to development in rural areas and villages where the talent from cities returned during the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
The Abhiyaan was launched by Modi via video conference in a village in Katihar district of Bihar in the virtual presence of chief ministers of five States — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand — and a Minister from Odisha.
Launching the scheme, Modi said there are some people who may not appreciate efforts of villagers in the fight against the novel coronavirus but he applauds them for their efforts. The way villages have fought coronavirus has taught a big lesson to the cities, he added. The scheme with an outlay of Rs 50,000 crore will be implemented on mission mode in 125 days in 116 districts of the six States to which the maximum number of the migrant workers have returned.
The mission will be a convergent effort between 12 different ministries/ departments such as Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Road Transport and Highways, Mines, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Environment, Railways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, New and Renewable Energy, Border Roads, Telecom, and Agriculture. These 25 works are related to rural housing for the poor, plantations, provision of drinking water through Jal Jeevan Mission, and construction of panchayat bhavans, community toilets, rural mandis, rural roads, cattle sheds and anganwadi bhavans, according to the Ministry of Rural Development, which is the nodal ministry for the project.
Underlining that migrant workers were always in the Centre’s thoughts during the lockdown, the prime minister said it is an endeavour of his government that workers get jobs near their home and help in development of villages.
Before launching the scheme, Modi spoke to several migrants and enquired their current state of employment and also whether the various welfare schemes launched during the lockdown period were available to them.
Modi expressed satisfaction and said that earlier, money used to be given in the name of beneficiaries but it never reached them but now things have changed. In the beginning of his speech, Modi paid homage to the soldiers of the Bihar Regiment who lost their lives in a violent clash with Chinese troops at LAC in eastern Ladakh.
The scheme is separate from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) ensures 100 days of employment per household in an year. MGNREGS is applicable across the country and a large number of works are allowed under the scheme even working on own farms by small Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe farmers is allowed and government pay wages to them.
Whereas the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana is a one-time scheme for providing employment to migrant workers who returned during the lockdown near their villages.