Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday, 20 June 2026, highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's disbursement of ₹2,400 crore in incentives to beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana, a central scheme designed to boost formal employment creation across India.

Context

Gadkari shared the development on X, noting that Prime Minister Modi personally distributed the incentive amount to scheme beneficiaries. Translating his post, Gadkari wrote: 'Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana ke antargat aaj Pradhan Mantri Shri Narendra Modi ji ne laabharthiyon ko ₹2,400 crore ki protsahan rashi vitarit ki' — 'Under the Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today distributed incentive amounts of ₹2,400 crore to beneficiaries.'

The scheme targets youth entering formal employment for the first time, offering them an incentive of up to ₹15,000. Employers who generate additional formal jobs receive up to ₹3,000 per month for each new hire, creating a dual-sided push to formalise India's workforce.

Policy Backdrop

The Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana sits within a longer arc of central government efforts to shift workers from informal to formal employment. An earlier iteration, the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana, launched in 2016, reimbursed employers' contributions to the Employees' Pension Scheme to incentivise new formal hiring.

Successive governments have used Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)-linked subsidies as the primary instrument to formalise workforce participation, expand social security coverage, and widen the tax base. The current scheme continues that lineage by directing incentives directly to first-time formal employees alongside employer-side support.

Labour code reforms enacted in recent years have further sought to simplify compliance for employers, making EPFO enrolment more accessible for smaller firms that traditionally operated outside the formal sector.

Stakeholders and Impact

The scheme's dual-beneficiary design means both first-time formal sector employees and employers expanding their workforce stand to gain directly. For young job-seekers, the one-time incentive of up to ₹15,000 provides a meaningful financial cushion in the early months of formal employment, while encouraging EPFO registration.

On the employer side, the ₹3,000 per month per additional hire reduces the marginal cost of formalising new workers, particularly for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that have historically been reluctant to take on the compliance burden of formal employment contracts. Gadkari's ministry, which oversees large-scale road construction and highway development, has a direct stake in formalising the construction labour force — one of India's largest informal employment segments.

What's Next

Quarterly EPFO payroll data releases will serve as the primary indicator of whether the scheme is translating into measurable gains in formal job creation. Analysts will watch whether the ₹2,400 crore disbursement corresponds to a proportional uptick in new EPFO registrations in the months ahead.

Any supplementary allocation in the next Union Budget will signal the government's intent to scale the scheme further. With youth unemployment and workforce formalisation remaining central political and economic concerns, the scheme's performance is likely to feature prominently in the government's outreach ahead of future electoral cycles.