Over 25% beneficiaries of Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan limited to only 5 districts
   Date :11-Jul-2020

Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiy
 
 
 
Staff Reporter :
 
Bhilai,
 
While Centre and State Governments are targeting to provide job opportunities to thousands of migrants across Chhattisgarh through a dedicated scheme, over 25 percent, migrant workers are confined in just five districts of the State. It highlight how some of the remote as well as rural districts in Chhattisgarh are in the quagmire of an acute migration crisis owing to lack of employment opportunities and industrial units. It should be noted here that, over 7.5 million or 75 lakh migrant workers in the country is targetted under Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan (GKRA), a prestigious project of union ministry of labour and employment. In Chhattisgarh, over 54,000 migrant workers have been identified to get job through this scheme.
 
Of this, only five districts are now home to 13,900 of these identified migrants who have returned to their villages from their workplace in Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi-NCR, Haryana and Southern States such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka due to COVID-19 fear and lockdown. These five districts are Surajpur, Surguja, Koriya, Balrampur (all four of Surguja Division) and Bilaspur of Bilaspur division. Among all divisions, districts of Surguja division saw the maximum number of migrants with over 17,000. Under this GKRA scheme, the government (both central as well as state) will pool in 25 welfare projects and front load the money available to offer works to migrants for 125 days.
 
Owing to COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown situation, these migrant workers either lost their jobs or quit it to return to their native places for safety. However, experts believe that while demand for rural jobs scheme will go up as there is an oversupply of workers in Rural Parts of all states including Chhattisgarh due to revere migration. The central government and State Government will have to fix the rural economy by helping the rural industries of all forms (micro, small and medium enterprises) grow and offer them many packages including financial assistance.
 
“Besides agriculture and livestock like hen, goat, cow, buffalo farming, rural economy offers largely informal and casual works. The promotion of formal employment options, hand holding of rural industries and a better supply chain eco-system will be helpful. Reveres migration due to coronavirus pandemic and lockdown and income loss has the potential to push people into poverty in rural society” said Dr Santosh Jain, Economist and Professor of Economics at Hemchand Yadav University Durg. “It may not occur for next few months owing to COVID-19 pandemic, but once the infection is under control, people will move out again” stated Dr R S Sharma, Economist and retired professor in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University Raipur. Other than these five districts, Balod in Durg division, Kanker in Bastar Division, Gariyaband in Raipur division and Mungeli in Bilaspur division have also witnessed a higher number of natives returining from other states due to lockdown and coronavirus pandemic.