Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan: Objectives, Beneficiaries, States List

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan is a rural public works scheme to provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee rural citizens and migrant workers. This scheme aims to provide employment to the labourers who have returned to their homes due to the Covid-19 lockdown. 

The government launched the mega Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan to boost livelihood opportunities in rural India amid the Covid-19 crisis. The priority of the scheme is to meet the immediate requirements of workers who have returned to their respective districts by providing them with livelihood opportunities.

Objectives of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan aims at initiating construction activities, public works and other economic activities on a large scale to meet the income and livelihood requirements of migrant workers and similarly affected rural workers. This scheme has the following broad objectives: 

• Provide immediate employment opportunities to returnee migrant workers and similarly affected rural populations. 
• Saturate villages with assets and public infrastructure. 
• Set the stage for enhancing longer-term livelihood opportunities.

Coverage of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan covers 116 districts across six states, including 27 aspirational districts: Jharkhand, Bihar,  Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh. These districts are estimated to cover around 2/3 of migrant workers. The districts with 25,000 and more returnee migrant workers have been selected to address their hardships. The focus is mainly also on rural citizens.

Duration of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan was operational for 125 days, commencing on 20th June 2020.

Beneficiaries of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The beneficiaries are the returnee migrant workers (migrant workers who returned to their hometowns due to the Covid-19 lockdown) and similarly affected rural populations of the identified districts of six states.

Implementation of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan

The Department of Rural Development was the nodal department coordinating the scheme’s monitoring, implementation and outcome. The scheme’s objectives were met through the convergence of resources of various schemes/programmes from 12 Government Ministries.

The scheme focused on and intensified the implementation through 25 target-driven works that provided employment and created infrastructure in the rural areas of 116 identified districts with a resource of Rs 50,000 crore. 

These 25 identified works or projects under this scheme are related to meeting the needs of the villages, such as plantations, rural housing for the poor, provision of drinking water through the Jal Jeevan mission, community toilets, Panchayat bhavans, rural roads, rural Mandis and other infrastructure like Anganwadi bhavans, cattle sheds, etc.

The scheme also contributed towards providing modern facilities, such as laying optic fibre cables and internet connectivity, to increase internet speed in villages so that children can study and learn like those in districts.