- The drive will focus on 116 districts in six states, together accounting for over 6.7 mn migrant workers
- The scheme will cover almost two-thirds of migrants who have returned home
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government will launch a massive rural public works scheme, the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, on 20 June to provide livelihood support to migrant workers and rural citizens and create a new social safety net.
The move is aimed at mitigating the impact of a stringent nationwide lockdown that brought economic activity to a standstill across the country and particularly affected the rural economy.
The scheme will be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conference in the presence of Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), chief and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.
This is politically significant as Bihar accounts for a large number of the migrant workers who travelled to their hometowns and villages when the lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus. The state is set to go to polls later this year and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar aims to retain power.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that the job creation drive will focus on 116 districts across six states, together accounting for more than 6.7 million migrant workers, which is nearly two-thirds of the total migrants who have gone to their villages and hometowns. The 25 welfare schemes that cover creation of assets, building houses and facilities for farmers will be pooled under this drive.
Source: livemint
