PM Modi Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan Scheme: Everything You Must Know About It

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's launched the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan or GKRA on June 20, 2023 in order to create employment opportunities for thousands of migrant workers who were compelled to return their homes during the Covid-19 lockdown. The scheme was a focus campaign and ran in a mission mode for 125 days in 116 districts of 6 stated to assist migrant workers secure jobs in their respective home states.

The 50,000-crore dedicated programme began from Telihar village of Bihar's Khagari district and aimed to cover 116 districts all over the six states namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh.

When PM Modi launched the scheme he said, ""The country understands your emotions and your needs. The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan starting from Khagaria in Bihar is a major tool to fulfil this need and emotion."

According to reports, the programme accomplished an employment generation of 50.78 crore person-days with total expenses of Rs 39,293 crore, as published in The Wire.

With the emergence and surge of mass media that may include social media, television, radio, etc, awareness among rural people increased significantly. With the arrival of mobile phones and availability of internet, people residing in villages can conveniently look for jobs, gain new skills, and link with scores of people outside the boundaries of their villages.

The change has made people living in villages increasingly aware of various government schemes that can effectively aid them with even farming and several other activities.

Key Goal of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan: The program was launched with the purpose of starting construction activities, economic activities, public works at a large scale in order to achieve income and livelihood needs of migrant labourers and affected rural workers. The scheme contained several key objectives such as offering immediate employment opportunities to migrant workers, saturate rural areas with public infrastructure, and prepare the stage for boosting long-term livelihood opportunities, among others.

Time period of Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan: The duration of the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan was for 125 days that began from June 20, 2020.
The key beneficiaries of the programme were mainly the migrant workers and affected rural populations of the identified districts of six states.

Department of Rural Development was the nodal department coordinating the scheme's monitoring, implementation and outcome. The programme's goals were achieved via the convergence of resources of several schemes/programmes from 12 Government Ministries.

The programme strengthened the implementation via the 25 target-driven works that offered employment and created infrastructure in the rural areas of 116 identified districts. These 25 identified works or projects were linked to fulfilling the requirements 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.