The Prime Minister on 20th June launched a rural public works scheme-Garib Kalyan Rojgar Yojana- to make migrant workers employable. One of the severely hit people are these migrant workers who were stranded without any jobs. They started to head back towards their hometown as they did not have any permanent place to live where they used to work. The central government has communicated with 116 district administrations to plan about formal employment engagement of a segment of these migrant workers. These districts will explore various sectors like hospitality, manufacturing, service and travel sectors to provide a formal employment engagement to these workers.
Highlights of this scheme:
To address the vulnerable condition of migrant workers, this scheme will deploy 50,000 crores from among the outlays for 25 existing schemes for welfare.
Under this scheme, 3,00,000 migrant workers will be trained and placed as apprentices in rural industries and other district level formal job clusters.
Of the 3,00,000 migrant workers, 1,50,000 will be offered short-term skills and the other 1,50,000 will receive a certificate through a programme- Recognition of Prior Learning.
The scheme will offer informal works immediately for 125 days, while 3,00,000 people will get formal work through this scheme.
Under apprenticeship, an industry can employ an apprentice for three years at a stipend which is on par with minimum wages of semi-skilled workers.
This scheme is like one arrow and two shots. There are two benefits of this scheme
This will train migrant workers in the formal job sector, which increases their employability.
Since it is an apprentice programme, the industries will not have to worry about their permanent wages as they have to pay stipend for a short period. Also some amount of stipend will be reimbursed by the government which will be done under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and the Apprenticeship Scheme.
States chosen for implementation of this scheme:
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha are the states where this scheme will be implemented. Across these states, 116 districts have been selected by the government to implement this scheme. These districts have estimated to cover about 2/3 of the migrant workers
