Govt may add more districts under rural jobs scheme for migrant workers

The government is not averse to including more districts under the recently launched rural jobs scheme for migrant workers after evaluating the need for an expansion, senior officials say, playing down the controversies sparked by the non-inclusion of districts in states such as West Bengal.

They say the scheme may be evaluated after some weeks, following which a decision on including new districts will be taken, based on the demand from states. 

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan was launched June 20 to provide work for 125 days in 25 areas to migrant workers in 116 districts of six states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Jharkhand. Any district where over 25,000 migrants came back to their homes after the Centre implemented the lockdown in March-end was chosen for the scheme. 

Senior officials said the cut-off was decided based on the data provided by states before June 1. "If their number (of returning migrants) in any district exceeds 25,000 after June 1, we will consider including them too under the PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana," said one of the officials. 

He said in states such as West Bengal, special trains for migrants could not run for some time due to cyclone Amphan, which is why their return may have got delayed. That is why districts in the state haven't made the cut in the first list. The same may be true for states such as Chhattisgarh, he said.

This does not mean that if the number of migrants has swelled over 25,000 in more districts, they will not be considered for the scheme.  “In fact, we will do an assessment after June 30 again to see whether the list of districts for Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana can be expanded, depending upon the changed ground realities,” the official said. 

Thirty-two of the 38 districts in poll-bound Bihar are included under the scheme, which was launched in Khagadia of the state by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.

According to the official data, about 70,000 migrants returned to Khagaria district. There are also districts in the state where many more workers came back. They include East Champaran, where the number was more than double of Kagaria’s at 153,022.

Also, work will be provided to migrant workers in 31 districts in Uttar Pradesh, 24 in Madhya Pradesh, 22 in Rajasthan, four in Odisha and three in Jharkhand. These districts have around 6.7 million migrant workers, and account for two-thirds of “returnee” workers.

Based on data accumulated from states, the government has estimated that around 10 million workers have migrated back to their villages after the national lockdown was enforced.
 

The Centre will front-load Rs 50,000 crore of funds allocated in the Budget for 2020-21 under various other heads for this scheme. The workers will be paid according to the stipulated minimum wages in the respective schemes of the government.

Twenty-five areas of work being provided under the scheme include building panchayat buildings, community sanitation complexes, works under finance commission funds, national highway works and laying of fibre optic cables under Bharat Net.