Jobs for Migrants

The Supreme Court on Friday and Tuesday issued certain very important directives to the state governments. The focus of these directives is on the lakhs of workers who have returned home after having lost their livelihood in far-away states because of the lockdown. Since most of these workers had literally worked like slaves in the absence of any government regulation to provide them the minimum basic facilities including an emergency insurance cover, lakhs of families across the country are now on the verge of starving. The media have carried numerous stories of the tragedies that have befallen on these lakhs of families in the past several weeks, especially since the exodus began. The Supreme Court has very rightly asked all state governments to provide certain benefits for these workers who have returned to their respective native states. These include a direction to submit schemes to generate employment for the migrants, and also to withdraw the cases the police had slammed against these hapless people for allegedly violating lockdown orders. The apex court has also asked the states to drop all cases registered against the migrants under the Disaster Management Act 2005, for allegedly violating lockdown orders. The Court has also put on record the fact that the migrant labourers who were forced to proceed to their native place, after cessation of their employment, have been already suffering. As such, it has asked the state governments to ensure that the police and other authorities deal with in a "humane manner" in view of the financial difficulty which all and every migrant labourer has been invariably facing. Earlier, on Friday, the Supreme Court had asked the state governments to complete the process of transportation of all migrants back to their respective home states within 15 days. Following that, all states will be asked to bring on record, how they will provide employment and other kinds of relief to the migrant workers who have returned home. The most significant portion of the directives is that the state governments will have to compulsorily carry out a detailed registration of all migrants. After all, these migrant workers silently contribute in a big way to the overall economy of the country.