Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’ to boost livelihood opportunities in rural India amid the COVID-19 crisis. The Prime Minister flagged off the Abhiyan from village Telihar in Bihar’s Khagaria district via video-conferencing. The campaign of 125 days across 116 districts in 6 states aims to work in mission mode to help migrant workers. It will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide jobs and create infrastructure in the rural regions of the country with a resource envelope of Rs 50,000 crore, the PMO office had said.
“The Government of India has decided to launch a massive rural public works scheme ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’ to empower and provide livelihood opportunities to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens,” the Prime Minister’s office had said.
Around 39 crore people have received financial assistance of Rs 34,800 crore amid the COVID-19 lockdown under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) as on May 5, the government had said in a statement on May 6.These people received the assistance, which was announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26 to protect them from the impact of the lockdown due to COVID-19, via digital payment infrastructure.