The government of India has launched the jobs-for-migrants scheme under which it has spent INR 6000 crore – specifically on the laying of optic fibre cables.
July 11, 2020
A total of 59.8 million days of work has been created across a bouquet of 25 schemes—clubbed to create the programme—in the three weeks, indicating the rising demand for work in rural areas.
An unusual but necessary and apt (given the times) activity has emerged the source of the most work in the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Yojna, the ambitious jobs-for-migrants scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 20 – the laying of optic fibre cables.
In the three weeks since its launch, the government has spent Rs 6,000 crore on the scheme on which it plans to spend a total of Rs 50,000 crore in 125 days, providing jobs to millions of daily wage workers who returned to homes in the Indian hinterland from cities in the wake of the coronavirus disease and the lockdown imposed to slow its spread.
According to the media reports, a total of 59.8 million days of work has been created across a bouquet of 25 schemes—clubbed to create the programme—in the three weeks.
Of this, laying optic fibre cables generated the most work, and accounted for 93,390 activities (or work lots) according to government data. Details of how many man days this translated into were not immediately available. construction of houses for rural poor, which got off to a slow start, accounted for 64,756 activities. This comes at a time when a lot of daily activities have moved online, even in rural India, in the wake the coronavirus disease.
