Taking a leaf out of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Kerala government will soon roll out an employment guarantee scheme for overseas returnees with assured employment days in key selected industries where they have expertise. The first-of-its-kind scheme in the country for the returnees, the scheme titled NoRKA (Non-Resident Keralites Affairs) Assisted and Mobilised Employment (NAME) is a programme exclusively meant for overseas returnees.
Corpus fund of ₹5 crore
Speaking to The Hindu, NoRKA-Roots Chief Executive Officer K. Harikrishnan Namboothiri said the State government had set aside a corpus fund of ₹5 crore to pilot the project this financial year. The scheme envisages providing guaranteed employment for the returnees in sectors where their expertise can be utilised. The State government would provide a certain percentage of the wages of the employee for a certain period to the employer as part of the scheme.
Registration on portal
The guidelines of the scheme, which will decide the ‘percentage’ of the wages to be shouldered by the government for a certain period, are being drafted. The NoRKA Roots will develop an online portal, where the returning expats and employers in various sectors can register, mentioning their area of expertise and requirements of employers respectively. One of the conditions of the State government is that those selected by the employer should be given at least one year of employment in normal circumstances.
“The government in turn will give a certain percentage of the wages of the employee for a certain period to the employer. Through this, the State is targeting to economically integrate the returnees into the State’s industrial sector. It’s a win-win situation both for returning expats and the domestic industry in Kerala. While the employee is getting an opportunity to work without waiting for a long, the domestic industry can make use of the expertise of the employee who acquired it over the years in a foreign country,” said Mr. Namboothiri.
The project has been given administrative sanction and once the guidelines are drafted, the project can be rolled out in two to three months, said NoRKA-Roots officials.
