Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana surpasses employment generation target

The central government's employment incentive scheme, Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY), has exceeded its initial employment generation target, showcasing its success in fostering job creation and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic, the labour ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

"As of 31 July, 2023, the ABRY has already achieved an enrolment of over 7.58 million new employees. To date, a total of 1,52,380 establishments, employing 60,44,155 new employees and upon fulfilling all the eligibility conditions, have availed benefits amounting to a sum of Rs 9,669.87 crore under the ABRY scheme," the statement said.

The government had launched ABRY in October 2020 to incentivise employers for the creation of new jobs and restoration of retrenched workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Initially intended to benefit a total of 7.2 million workers until June 2021, the terminal date for registration of beneficiaries under the scheme was extended to March 2022.

The scheme incentivised employment of unemployed individuals, including those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, by covering both the employee and employer contributions (24 per cent of wages) for establishments with up to 1,000 employees and for establishments with over 1,000 employees, only the employee's Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) contributions (12 per cent of wages) were covered in respect of new employees.

Earlier, according to a written reply given in Lok Sabha, Rameshwar Teli, minister of state for Labour and Employment, had said that 20.1 per cent of formal workers in Punjab benefited under the central sector scheme until 18 July this year, followed by Himachal Pradesh (19.1 per cent), Rajasthan (18.9 per cent), Gujarat (15.4 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (14.2 per cent).

The Centre spent Rs 405 crore and Rs 5,000 crore in FY21 and FY22, respectively, whereas Rs 4,636 crore were spent in FY23 under the scheme. Earlier this year, the government allocated Rs 2,272 crore for the scheme in FY24.