Government apathy: Sans jobs, migrants from Odisha's Ganjam head back to workplaces

Sources said the funds were released in June and were supposed to be utilised within 125 days. 
For representational purposes (Photo | PTI)
For representational purposes (Photo | PTI)

BERHAMPUR: Migrant workers from Ganjam district are returning to their work places in large numbers over failure of the administration to create jobs for them and utilise funds released by the Central Government for the purpose. 

The Central Government had released Rs 324 crore under MGNREGS and other welfare schemes to the district to provide jobs to migrant workers for 125 days and create around 1.14 crore man-days.

But the administration spent around 25 per cent of the fund and created 31.92 lakh man-days benefiting only 45,000 workers of the over 4 lakh who had returned to the district. 

Sources said the funds were released in June and were supposed to be utilised within 125 days. Over 10 lakh people from the district work in around 22 states of the country and 4 lakh of them had returned.

Apart from the Centre’s scheme, the State Government too had spent a huge amount to accommodate the workers and engage them under MGNREGS.

The migrants were also given Rs 2,000 after completion of their quarantine period. But, the steps failed to serve the purpose as the workers, especially skilled ones, were not keen to do menial jobs. The ones willing to work had trouble finding jobs in their villages. 

Meanwhile, the district recorded 107 fresh positive cases in the last 24 hours of which eight are Covid warriors and the rest local contacts.

With this the tally in the district has gone up to 18,345 of which 16,794 have recovered. The district also reported three deaths on the day. 

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