Rs 50,000-crore public works on the cards for generating jobs

The programme, titled Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, will start from Bihar on June 20 via video conference and the “focused campaign” will run in “mission mode” for 125 days across 116 districts in six states to help migrant workers get jobs

Public works worth Rs 50,000 crore will be offered in a dedicated programme to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this month to create jobs for millions of migrant workers who returned home, the government announced on Thursday.

Migrant workers queue outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus railway station to return to their hometown after the government eased a nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the Covid-19 corona virus, in Mumbai.(Bhushan Koyande/ HT)

The programme, titled Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, will start from Bihar on June 20 via video conference and the “focused campaign” will run in “mission mode” for 125 days across 116 districts in six states to help migrant workers get jobs, it added.

The largest number of migrant workers (three million) have returned to Bihar since the Covid-19 pandemic swept through the country leaving daily-wage labourers jobless in big cities.

Watch | PM Modi launches Rs 50,000 crore-scheme to create jobs for migrants

 

On May 30, HT was the first to report details of the Modi government’s plan for a job and welfare programme for migrant workers.

“In 125 days, nearly 25 schemes will be brought together to reach saturation. These will include Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, Gram Sadak Yojna, Jal Jeevan Yojna, PM Gram Sadak Yojna, etc,” finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a press conference on Thursday.

The move will not involve new budgetary allocation -- the 25 schemes will be front-loaded, utilising in 125 days the allocation meant for the year, said Sitharaman.

Aimed to boosting livelihood opportunities in rural India, the programme will “create durable infrastructure along with boosting employment opportunities,” an official communique said.

The Centre’s dependence on the construction to create jobs comes after skill mapping -- in districts where more than 25,000 migrant workers have returned, and run by the rural development ministry with monitoring by the PMO -- showed more than two-thirds of the migrant workers belonged to this sector, according to an official, who asked not to be named.

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan will start from Telihar village of Bihar’s Khagaria district. The programme will cover India’s 116 districts across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha. All these districts have received more than 25,000 migrant workers during the lockdown. “We are pooling resources from these 25 projects. There are some works which may get affected by monsoon such as laying of roads. But we want to front load the money allotted for these for those 116 districts and ensure that all those workers in these districts are given employment,” said Sitharaman.

Rural development secretary NN Sinha said that the laying of fibre optics cable, railway works, rurban mission jobs, sanitation works, waste management, poultry, farm ponds and training through Krishi Vogyan Kendras will be given to the migrant workers under the programme.

He added that there is no bar for other districts to join the programme if they also have more than 25,000 migrant workers.

The 116 districts will also contain 27 Aspirational Districts—India’s poorest areas in socio-economic indices—and the government hopes to cover about two-third of migrant workers, the government communique said.

Twelve different ministries or departments-- rural development, panchayati raj, transport, mines, drinking water, environment, railways, petroleum, new & renewable energy, border Roads, telecom and agriculture — will participate in the programme, the release added.

“Money has been pooled in together to start the programme. The priority is to provide immediate work for them as we go along; we have to see how it goes and if some people would like to stay or go back,” Sitharaman said.