PM to launch Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan today to boost rural employment

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch 'Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan' today to boost livelihood opportunities in rural India amid Covid-19 crisis.

The Prime Minister will flag off the Abhiyan from village Telihar in Bihar's Khagaria district via video-conferencing. "The Government of India has decided to launch a massive rural public works scheme 'Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan' to empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens," the Prime Minister's office had said.

The campaign of 125 days across 116 districts in 6 states aims to work in mission mode to help migrant workers. It will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide jobs and create infrastructure in the rural regions of the country with a resource envelope of Rs 50,000 crore, the PMO office had said. 

Around 390 million people have received financial assistance of Rs 34,800 crore amid the Covid-19 lockdown under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) as on May 5, the government had said in a statement on May 6. 

These people received the assistance, which was announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26 to protect them from the impact of the lockdown due to Covid-19, via digital payment infrastructure.

Earlier, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the government will provide jobs to over 6 million migrant workers in six states by bringing together various government schemes.

The six states which had the highest influx of migrants who have “settled” in their districts were: Bihar (32 districts), Uttar Pradesh (31), Madhya Pradesh (24), Rajasthan (22), Odisha (4) and Jharkhand (3). These states had 116 districts, each with at least 25,000 returning migrant workers who will benefit from the plan.

The money will go towards construction of national highways and rural road connectivity, construction of wells, plantation, railway activities, community sanitation complex, horticulture, farm ponds, cattle sheds, among others. The Krishi Vigyan Kendras in villages will also help in imparting skills to the workers. The workers will be paid according to the stipulated minimum wage in the respective schemes of the government.