Draft Policy on the Migrant Workers

In News: Niti Aayog has released a Draft Policy on Migrant Workers.

Migrant Worker

• A worker who has left his place of residence for the work due to varying degrees of constraints and compulsions is a migrant worker.
• Migrant workers are sometimes unwelcomed by locals due to fear of job loss, cultural and demographic diversions, allegation of law and order problems.
• There are multiple international forums like the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families which advocate the fair treatment of migrants.
• Indian Constitution also gives the right of freedom to migrate, settle and work under Article 19(1).
• Also, Article 39(e) binds the State to formulate the non-abusive policy on health and strength of women and men workers.
• Article 43 provides for legislative measures for guaranteeing living wages to all the workers, industrial or agriculture.

Key Highlights of First Draft Policy on Migrant Workers.

• Focus on Political inclusion of migrant workers: Mechanisms to “enable voting” are provisioned.
  • It will “enhance the accountability of political leadership towards welfare of migrant workers of their respective states.
• Special Unit on Migration: It should be set up by the Ministry of Labour.
• Inter-state Migration Management Bodies: They will cover India’s key migration corridors. For Example:
  • Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai;
  • Bihar and Delhi;
  • Western Odisha and Andhra Pradesh;
  • Rajasthan and Gujarat, and
  • Odisha and Gujarat.
• Migrant Labour Section in every States’ Labour Department: Source states should send nodal officers to destination states to work collectively with the labour officers.
• Policies facilitating Internal Migration: Government should work on promoting internal migration in contrast to hindering it.
• Migrants as the centre of Policy Making: The Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) programs in urban centres, Health and Social Protection Schemes, etc. should also consider migrants as their target beneficiaries.
• Skill Mapping: Proper skill mapping can help bridge the employee-employer gap and create a transparent value chain and promote formalisation of work.
• National Helpline: AADHAR seeded social security schemes and Psycho-social assistance should be provided through the National Helpline.
• Policy also provisioned for the state’s Tribal department to have Labour inspectors at the block level and at the district level.

Need/Benefits

• Recent Migrant Crisis during Lock Down: As per data quoted by the Labour minister in Parliament, 10 million labourers returned home facing multiple challenges including death.
  • At least 26 lakh migrant workers were stranded across the country, according to the Chief Labour Commissioner’s Office
• Fragmented Local Market: It obscures supply chains and relationships between business owners and workers .
• Existing gap in the unionization of migrant workers: It leads to the precarious nature of jobs.
• Failure of MGNREGA and State Rural Livelihood Mission to curb out migration: Reasons behind this could be
  • Poor pay for skills.
  • Tribals not “actively included” in skill development schemes and were not able to access them because of “lack of awareness and tedious paperwork and processes.
• Need for Rights based Approach: The policy taps the migrants’ potential rather than hand-outs and cash-transfers.
• Political Empowerment: Migrant labour can demand their entitlements and political empowerment with the right to vote.
  • Politicisation, unionisation and mobilisation as workers in the past has forced parties and governments to see welfare as an essential aspect of industrial development.
• Need to fulfil Institutional Gaps: The policy highlights limited engagement of states with migrants. For example,
  • In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, anti-trafficking units focused on minor women have suffered with inadequate staff and poor supervision of migration trends.

Challenges

• Technological Challenge: Implementing the policy will demand a huge technological and logistic challenge.
• Lack of Coherent Data: There is lack of comprehensive data on migration within India.
• Blame shifting attitude rather than real groundwork: Labour is a concurrent subject and both government’s simply shifted blame on each other for handling migrant’s issue.

Conclusion

• The draft highlights the contribution of migrant labour in keeping India’s economy competitive and calls for a “rights-based” approach to “address the complexities of circular migration in the region, as well as migrants’ precarity, vulnerabilities and agency”.
• The NITI Aayog draft is a prompt to reimagine labour-capital relations while integrating the migrant workers within the formal workforce.
• This is necessary to build a compassionate society and a competitive economy.

Source: IE