{"id":14054,"date":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/23-02-2021\/draft-policy-on-the-migrant-workers\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","slug":"draft-policy-on-the-migrant-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/23-02-2021\/draft-policy-on-the-migrant-workers","title":{"rendered":"Draft Policy on the Migrant Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News: <\/strong>Niti Aayog has released a Draft Policy on Migrant Workers<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Migrant Worker<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A worker who has left his place of residence for the work due to varying degrees of constraints and compulsions is a migrant worker.<\/li>\n<li>Migrant workers are sometimes unwelcomed by locals due to fear of job loss, cultural and demographic diversions, allegation of law and order problems.<\/li>\n<li>There are multiple international forums like the <strong>International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families<\/strong> which advocate the fair treatment of migrants.<\/li>\n<li>Indian Constitution also gives the <strong>right of freedom to migrate, settle and work<\/strong> under Article 19(1).<\/li>\n<li>Also, <strong>Article 39(e)<\/strong> binds the State to formulate the non-abusive policy on health and strength of women and men workers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Article 43<\/strong> provides for legislative measures for guaranteeing living wages to all the workers, industrial or agriculture.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key Highlights of First Draft Policy on Migrant Workers.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Focus on Political inclusion of migrant workers:<\/strong> Mechanisms to <strong>\u201cenable voting\u201d<\/strong> are provisioned.\n<ul>\n<li>It will \u201cenhance the accountability of political leadership towards welfare of migrant workers of their respective states.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Special Unit on Migration: <\/strong>It should be set up by the <strong>Ministry of Labour.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Inter-state Migration Management Bodies:<\/strong> They will cover India\u2019s key migration corridors. For Example:\n<ul>\n<li>Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai;<\/li>\n<li>Bihar and Delhi;<\/li>\n<li>Western Odisha and Andhra Pradesh;<\/li>\n<li>Rajasthan and Gujarat, and<\/li>\n<li>Odisha and Gujarat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Migrant Labour Section in every States\u2019 Labour Department: <\/strong>Source states should send nodal officers to destination states to work collectively with the labour officers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Policies facilitating Internal Migration:<\/strong> Government should work on promoting internal migration in contrast to hindering it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Migrants as the centre of Policy Making:<\/strong> The <strong>Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) programs in urban centres, Health and Social Protection Schemes<\/strong>, etc. should also consider migrants as their target beneficiaries.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Skill Mapping:<\/strong> Proper skill mapping can help bridge the employee-employer gap and create a transparent value chain and promote formalisation of work.<\/li>\n<li><strong>National Helpline: AADHAR seeded social security schemes<\/strong> and <strong>Psycho-social assistance<\/strong> should be provided through the<strong> National Helpline<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Policy also provisioned for the state&#8217;s<strong> Tribal department to have Labour inspectors at the block level and at the district level<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Need\/Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Recent Migrant Crisis during Lock Down:<\/strong> As per data quoted by the Labour minister in Parliament, <strong>10 million labourers returned home<\/strong> facing multiple challenges including death.\n<ul>\n<li>At least <strong>26 lakh migrant workers<\/strong> were stranded across the country, according to the Chief Labour Commissioner\u2019s Office<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fragmented Local Market:<\/strong> It obscures supply chains and relationships between business owners and workers .<\/li>\n<li><strong>Existing gap in the unionization of migrant workers: <\/strong>It leads to the precarious nature of jobs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Failure of MGNREGA and State Rural Livelihood Mission to curb out migration: <\/strong>Reasons behind this could be\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Poor pay<\/strong> for skills.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tribals<\/strong> not \u201cactively included\u201d in skill development schemes and were not able to access them because of \u201clack of awareness and tedious paperwork and processes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Need for Rights based Approach: <\/strong>The policy taps the migrants\u2019 potential rather than hand-outs and cash-transfers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Political Empowerment: <\/strong>Migrant labour can demand their entitlements and political empowerment with the right to vote.\n<ul>\n<li>Politicisation, unionisation and mobilisation as workers in the past has forced parties and governments to see welfare as an essential aspect of industrial development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Need to fulfil Institutional Gaps:<\/strong> The policy highlights limited engagement of states with migrants. For example,\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh<\/strong>, <strong>anti-trafficking units<\/strong> focused on minor women have suffered with inadequate staff and poor supervision of migration trends.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Technological Challenge: <\/strong>Implementing the policy will demand a huge technological and logistic challenge.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lack of Coherent Data:<\/strong> There is lack of comprehensive data on migration within India.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Blame shifting attitude rather than real groundwork:<\/strong> Labour is a concurrent subject and both government\u2019s simply shifted blame on each other for handling migrant\u2019s issue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The draft highlights the contribution of migrant labour in keeping India\u2019s economy competitive and calls for a \u201crights-based\u201d approach to \u201caddress the complexities of circular migration in the region, as well as migrants\u2019 precarity, vulnerabilities and agency\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The NITI Aayog draft is a prompt to<strong> reimagine labour-capital relations<\/strong> while <strong>integrating the migrant workers within the formal workforce<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This is necessary to build a <strong>compassionate society and a competitive economy<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/migrant-worker-first-draft-policy-niti-aayog-labour-ministry-covid-19-7197599\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1634750current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}