Lucknow’s bordering district Unnao found mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech to launch Rs 50,000-crore Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan when he spoke on how migrant labourers changed the face of a school where they were quarantined.
“The Unnao incident prompted me to launch the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan. Their work was testimony to the fact that they have skills and patriotism and when put together they can transform any situation,” the prime minister said. 
Modi said that workers who returned from other states to UP were quarantined in a government school in Unnao during lockdown. Most of these workers returned from Hyderabad and had expertise in painting and Plaster of Paris (PoP) work.
The prime minister said that the workers decided to use quarantine period in renovating the school. “When I learnt this through the media, I was influenced by their skills and patriotism. I felt that these people have the passion to do something for the country and society, which inspired me to start Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan,” he said.
Modi said that a lot of talented people returned to villages during lockdown. “When this section, which works for progress of cities, works in rural areas, then the state’s development will also gain momentum,” he hoped.
The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan (scheme) will run in 116 districts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These states recorded the maximum number of migrant returnees during lockdown. The scheme will help in providing employment to the workers as per their skills at local levels.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath hailed the initiative of the prime minister and thanked the Centre for adopting 31 districts of Uttar Pradesh for the scheme.
“The scheme will help the poor and migrants to get employment at the ground level. Workers who built cities will now transform villages,” he said.
The 31 districts selected for the scheme include Siddharthnagar, Prayagraj, Gonda, Maharajganj, Bahraich, Balrampur, Jaunpur, Hardoi, Azamgarh, Basti, Gorakhpur, Sultanpur,  Kushinagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Banda, Varanasi,  Ambedkar Nagar, Sitapur, Ghazipur, Ayodhya,  Pratapgarh, Rae Bareli, Deoria, Amethi, Lakhimpur-Kheri, Unnao, Shrawasti, Fatehpur, Mirzapur, Jalaun and Kaushambi.