The government took immediate steps in the Covid period to provide relief to the migrant workers which involved setting up 20 Control Rooms all over the country and also intervening to ensure over two lakh workers were paid their due wages.
“The government has taken several steps to ensure that the country is well prepared to face the challenges and threats posed by Covid-19. In order to resolve the grievances of migrant workers during the lockdown, the Ministry of Labour and Employment set up 20 Control Rooms all over the country. During the lockdown, more than 15000 complaints of the workers were resolved through these Control Rooms, and due to the intervention of the Ministry more than two lakh workers were paid their due wages amounting to about Rs. 295 crores,” said Minister of State for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar in a reply to a question in Loksabha.
“Ministry of Labour and Employment issued comprehensive Advisory Guidelines on 27th July 2020 to all the States/UTs for Covid safety and welfare of the migrant workers returning to their workplaces in the destination states. States/UTs were requested to take adequate steps to streamline the migration of the workers and to implement the advisory guidelines by quickly gearing up their labor Law enforcement machinery and ensuring statutory compliance by all the stakeholders which would provide Migrant Workers much needed help to mitigate the financial crisis and empower them to deal with the pandemic,” he adds.
Over 1 crore 14 Lakh migrant workers returned to their respective states during the Corona pandemic. The top five states which reported the highest return of the migrant workers are:
S.no State Number of workers returned to their home states
- Uttar Pradesh 32,49,638
- Bihar 15,00,612
- West Bengal 13,84,693
- Rajasthan 13,08,130
- Odisha 8,53,777
“Besides, Ministry of Labour & Employment is in the process of developing of a comprehensive National Database of the Unorganised Workers (NDUW) to collect relevant information of unorganized workers and inter-alia help in the delivery of various social security and welfare schemes being implemented for them,” he adds.
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