Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the past few months have seen large flows of migrant labour from urban centres back to their home states. To reduce the hardship of these workers the central government launched the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan (GKRA) on June 20, with the twin objectives of providing employment and benefits to villages through the development of rural infrastructure using returning migrants’ skills. The GKRA covers 116 districts in six states over 125 days, each with a large concentration of returning migrant workers. But it is basically an umbrella scheme of 25 different government schemes under 12 ministries with the aim of better implementation via a centralised chain of command (the Ministry of Rural Development). Moreover, the allocation of Rs 50,000 crore represents a front loading of the outlays which had been planned over the next financial year. Interestingly, out of 25 work types under the GKRA scheme, 11 of them are already covered under MGNREGA.