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• More than 121 million people lost jobs in April, pushing the unemployment rate to a record 23%
• An urban version of the plan will soften the blow on citizens most affected by the coronavirus fallout

India is considering extending its flagship jobs program in villages to workers in cities left unemployed by the pandemic-induced lockdowns, a government official said.

The program, when affirmed, might be turned out in littler urban communities and at first expense around 350 billion rupees ($4.8 billion), said Sanjay Kumar, a joint secretary in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

“The legislature has been thinking about this thought since a year ago,” he said. “The pandemic gave a push to this conversation.”

Head administrator Narendra Modi’s legislature is as of now spending more than 1 trillion rupees on a rustic employments program this year, under which laborers in the hinterland can win an ensured least every day compensation of 202 rupees for in any event 100 days per year. A urban rendition of the arrangement will mellow the pass up the Covid aftermath, which has set Asia’s third-biggest economy on course for its most profound withdrawal ever.

The thought is to begin with littler towns in light of the fact that enormous city extends normally need proficient mastery, Kumar said.

The rustic program includes utilizing individuals for neighborhood open works ventures, for example, street building, admirably burrowing and reforestation. It presently covers in excess of 270 million individuals and was utilized as an instrument to give work to transient laborers coming back from urban areas in the midst of the lockdown.

All things considered, Covid-19 additionally pulverized jobs in urban India, making another underclass of laborers who are being driven into destitution, as indicated by an investigation by the London School of Economics.

In excess of 121 million individuals lost positions in April, pushing the joblessness rate to a record 23%, as per the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Yet, the jobless rate has since fallen as the economy resumed.

“A public level promise to beat the employment emergency is in this manner fundamental for keeping urban specialists from falling into neediness and for countervailing the sharp and unexpected ascent in imbalance,” composed Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli, the creators of the report – ‘City of dreams no more: The effect of Covid-19 on urban laborers in India’ – distributed by LSE’s Center for Economic Performance.

Monetary Affairs Secretary Tarun Bajaj prior talked about the program in a meeting to Business Standard paper, raising desire for a financial lift after a formerly declared 21-trillion rupee uphold bundle missed the mark regarding real spending outgo.

The program would give an interest help for the economy, said Ashima Goyal, an educator at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai, and a counselor to Modi.