Rlys to create 1.1mn man-days work for migrants in 6 states

nNEWDELHI:: Indian Railways plans to speed up infrastructure projects and generate around 1.16 million person-days of employment this financial year for migrant workers who have returned home to six states since the lockdown for the Covid-19 was enforced on March 25.

Work on railway infrastructure projects is returning to the previous year’s level, railway board chairman VK Yadav told HT. The plan to accelerate the construction of infrastructure is targeted at Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The national transporter plans to utilise the entire capital expenditure budget it has been allocated this year, according to Yadav, who said infrastructure building had already started picking up. Railways has a capex budget of ₹1.61 lakh crore for financial year 2020-21.

The railroad network has employed migrant workers in states where the maximum number of such workers have returned, and already generated more than 380,000 person-days of employment in the past four weeks, he said. “That is helping us to expedite our infra projects. Our infrastructure work has really started picking up and we have almost reached previous year’s level,” Yadav said.

According to the ministry data, UP has generated the maximum employment of 140,000 person-days followed by Bihar and MP. The national carrier has raised its earlier target of generating 800,000 person-days of employment for migrant workers in infrastructure projects worth ₹1,800 crore over 125 days, until October 31, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan.

The Centre has identified 116 districts with a large concentration of returnee migrant workers in Bihar, Jharkhand, MP, Odisha, Rajasthan and UP for the ambitious employment-cum-rural public works programme launched by PM Narendra Modi on June 20. The PM said ₹50,000 crore would be spent on building durable rural infrastructure under the initiative.

“There are several projects identified across these states where the labourers have been deployed. We require unskilled labourers too for a lot of construction work. We want to expedite projects in these states. There is a nodal officer in each state and we monitor and prepare a weekly report,” a ministry official said, requesting anonymity.

The ministry is also considering generating employment under the government’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme for minor construction works. Railways is also in talks with states to get back labourers for construction work on its biggest infrastructure projects—the dedicated freight corridors, HT reported on July 5.

The project implementation agency, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited, which had been left with about 50% of its workforce after the lockdown has begun the process of getting back nearly 20,000 labourers. DFCCIL has sought help from UP, Bihar and Jharkhand to arrange workers for the ₹81,000 crore project, scheduled to be completed by 2021. 63,675 46,504