Modi launches Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan to generate employment for migrants

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 20

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan to boost livelihood opportunities through employments involving public works in villages.

Seeking to empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the migrant workers who returned to their native villages during the Covid-related lockdown period and rural citizens, Modi launched the scheme from Telihar village in Khagaria district through a video-conference.

“The scheme will ensure self-respect of workers, and progress of villages,” Modi said at the time of its launch. 

He said the Centre and all the state governments had prioritised welfare of migrant workers upended by the lockdown.

“The people in villages have emerged as exemplars in fighting corona,” Modi said, adding that their fortitude and discipline to ward off the epidemic is a lesson for the city folk, and a shining example for the world.

“There are some people in India who will yet not pat your back in appreciation of your efforts, but I will keep on highlighting it, Modi said in an obvious jibe at the critics of government’s welfare interventions.

“There would have been so much brouhaha of this success had it happened in other countries,” Modi said, adding that two-thirds of country’s population resided in villages. 

A total of 116 districts, each  having more than 25,000 returnee migrant workers across six states, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha, have been identified for the scheme’s implementation. These include 27 ‘Aspirational Districts’.

The campaign will be implemented for 125 days with the possibility of its further extension.

These districts are estimated to cover about two-thirds of the migrant workers in the country who were destabilised during the lockdown.

The villages across 116 districts in six states participated in the programme through the Common Service Centres and Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

The Abhiyaan will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide employment to the migrant workers on the 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 Abhiyaan will be a coordinated effort between 12 different ministries and departments, namely 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.