Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the central and state governments have mapped the skill sets of the migrant workers who have returned to their native places in large numbers for the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan (GKRA) under which public works worth Rs 50,000 crore will be carried out.

Addressing a curtain raiser press conference, Sitharaman said, “Within 125 days, for 116 districts, nearly 25 schemes of the government will be brought together under Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, we will reach saturation levels for each of those schemes within those 125 days.”

The campaign to “empower and provide livelihood opportunities” to the returnee migrant workers and rural citizens, will be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through a video-conference, from village Telihar in the district of Khagaria in Bihar on June 20.

The government in its official statement said a total of 116 districts with more than 25,000 returnee migrant workers across six states, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha, have been chosen for the campaign which includes 27 aspirational districts.

“These districts are estimated to cover about 2/3 of such migrant workers,” it added. “The campaign will create durable infrastructure along with boosting employment opportunities.”

The move has come at a time when lakhs of migrants have returned to villages in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak and the demand for employment has gone up in rural areas. The number of households working under MGNREGA had reached a new high in May 2020.