Govt to prepare national registry of migrant workers in the country

New Delhi/Patna: The Union Labour Ministry is preparing a registry, including all the comprehensive details of the migrant workers in the country.

Labour Secretary Heeralal Samariya said that the data for this is being collected from the states.

Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) national president C K Saji Narayanan told Malayala Manorama that his trade union had been raising the demand for a workers' registry for long. He also demanded that a national policy be formulated for migrant workers.

Ticket fares not to be levied

Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar also urged the trade unions to convince the migrant labourers to not to return to their home states.

The minister further said that ticket fares will not be levied from the migrant workers, heading to their homes on the special Shramik train. If the fares had been levied, these would be returned, he said.

The minister held discussion on these issues with various trade unions via video-conferencing. The union leaders also informed the minister about the issue of wages being slashed at various places and workers being dismissed in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

The government has reportedly assured the unions that the labour reforms will not be implemented until the COVID-19 crisis is over.

The trade unions also complained that the working hours were raised to 12 hours in a day in states such as Gujarat in the wake of COVID-19. They demanded that this be withdrawn.

Bihar to absorb migrant workers

Bihar will carry out skill-profiling of the migrant workers returning to the state. Around 9 lakh labourers, working in other states, is estimated to return to Bihar amid the COVID-19 lockdown. The objective of the data collection is to create jobs for these migrant workers in Bihar itself once the lockdown ends. A mobile application will be developed for this.

Attempt is to provide them with jobs, including those in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that the skills of the workers will be utilised for the development of the state.