Prime Ministers Employment Generation Programme in Maharashtra State A Study of Selected Districts in Marathwada Region

Abstract

The study region, Marathwada lies in the eastern part of Maharashtra consists eight district and the religions they follow are Indigenous faith, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhism, Christianity and others. The language spoken are local dialects including Hindi and Marathi. The economy is basically agro-based and its allied activities. Infrastructural bottleneck is one of the major flaw leading to underdevelopment of the districts economically. Prime Minister s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) was launched in 2008 with the merging of the then existing Prime Minister Rojgar Yojana (PMRY) and Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) schemes of this Ministry with a total Plan outlay of Rs. 4735 crore including Rs. 250 crore for backward and forward linkages. The Scheme is estimated to generate 37.37 lakh additional employment opportunities during the remaining four years of the XI Plan. newlineProper and systematic application of Government Schemes such as PMEGP was a boon for the economy as a whole. The PMEGP scheme has increased the entrepreneurial avenues in this backward part of the country as well as ensured overall socio-economic development through a sustainable livelihood and employment generating capabilities. PMEGP is found to be effective livelihood measure to remove poverty, unemployment and reduce social and economic disparity among the beneficiaries. Many educated youths including women has benefitted from this Programme to live decent life in the society. The finance considered to be life blood of any business concern. PMEGP helps to solve the problems of operational and seed capital. In the study area, business prospect found to very high in different sectors. Only productive engagement and proper direction / motivation of unemployment youth toward undertaking some business venture will get a positive result towards eradication of poverty. newlineFrom the above study it is concluded that PMEGP is playing an important role in reducing unemployment among youths. It is also providing scope for further development of