Jharkhand is set to launch a 100-day employment scheme for urban unskilled workers similar to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) amid the coronavirus pandemic and increasing unemployment, officials said on Sunday.
A brainchild of Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, the scheme will be known as Mukhyamantri SHRAMIK (Shahri Rozgar Manjuri For Kamgar) Yojna, which is aimed at enhancing livelihood security for urban poor.
Jharkhand will be the second state in the country after Kerala to launch an employment guarantee scheme for the urban poor. Kerala runs Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme (AUEGS).
“Formulation of the scheme has been done. The scheme will be rolled out once it gets approval from the state cabinet,” Vinay Kumar Choubey, Jharkhand’s urban development secretary, said
Like MGNREGS, the scheme will also have a provision for unemployment allowance, if any urban local body fails to provide work to job seekers within 15 days, Choubey said.
A worker will be entitled to one-fourth of the wages for the first 30 days of unemployment and it will be half in the second month. If the worker does not get a job for third, they will be entitled to equal to basic minimum wage, officials said.
“They will be given priority in the existing schemes. If they could not be accommodated in existing schemes, exclusives schemes for the purpose will be created and ULBs would be given separate funds for this. There are lots of opportunities of jobs in urban areas right from sanitation work to development projects,” Choubey said.
{{/usCountry}}“They will be given priority in the existing schemes. If they could not be accommodated in existing schemes, exclusives schemes for the purpose will be created and ULBs would be given separate funds for this. There are lots of opportunities of jobs in urban areas right from sanitation work to development projects,” Choubey said.
{{/usCountry}}Like labourers in MGNREGS, urban workers will also be registered and they would be provided job cards. “A special website is also being designed, similar to the website functions in MGNREGS,” Choubey said.
The scheme will be conducted by the urban development and housing department through the state urban livelihood mission. Municipal commissioners, executive offices or special officer of municipal bodies will be the nodal officer of the scheme.
Economists have appreciated the concept of the scheme and said it became necessary after the influx of migrant workers to the state.
“Till now there was a notion that poor means rural people. So, a lot of poor alleviation schemes were launched for rural areas. However, there is also a chunk of urban poor and they also need job guarantee like in rural areas,” Harishwar Dayal, a Jharkhand-based economist, said.
“The new scheme will help the migrant workers who returned to urban Jharkhand after corona outbreak,” Dayal added.
More than five lakh migrant workers stuck outside the state returned to Jharkhand since May 1 during the coronavirus pandemic.
The state rural development department has done a skill mapping of 2.5 lakh workers and it revealed that 30% of workers who returned from different states are unskilled labourers.