Ignores database provision for migrants

Section 21 of the Code says: “The central government and the state governments shall maintain the database or record, for inter-state migrant workers, electronically or otherwise in such portal... provided an inter-state migrant worker may register himself as an inter-state migrant worker on such portal on the basis of self-declaration and Aadhaar.”
But the draft rules unveiled by the labour ministry on Thursday mention no such database.A 1979 law that is among 13 labour laws that the Code seeks to subsume had made it mandatory for labour contractors to register with the labour department all the migrant workers they take outside their state.
But the state labour departments never implemented the Inter State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Act, 1979 — and the consequences of the neglect were seen after the lockdown began from March 25 this year.
The lockdown left migrant workers stranded without jobs, money or transport, with most of the labour contractors having fled without paying them their dues and virtually all modes of travel suspended.
After near-starvation for days or weeks, millions of the workers chose to walk the hundreds of kilometres to their homes, many dying on the way. Some others bicycled, or hitched rides on trucks and buses paying exorbitant rates. When special trains began running, some of them were able to beat the rush and buy tickets.
Independent researchers have counted the deaths of 972 migrant workers from lockdown-related causes.
One reason the Centre and the state governments failed to do more for the stranded migrants was that they had no data on how many of them were living and working in which state, and at exactly which worksite.
Had the 1979 law been implemented, the governments would have had this data on the workers as well as on the labour contractors who had hired them.
The first version of the Code, introduced in Parliament last year, was silent on the registration of migrant workers. The government inserted the provision for the database after facing criticism.
Labour economist K. Shyam Sundar, professor of human resource management at XLRI, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, said the database was unlikely to be created without the rules covering the provision.
He said the government seemed to have introduced the database provision as “a crisis-tackling measure”, to ward off criticism. “The rules do not specify how this can be implemented,” Sundar said.
The draft rules provide for a journey allowance for employees who have worked for 180 days in the last 12 months. It’s a once-a-year payment by the employer covering the worker’s travel home and back, and is expected to benefit migrant workers the most.
Sundar, however, said this provision could force a worker to stick to the original employer and forgo new opportunities.
The draft rules mandate annual medical check-ups for workers aged 45 or above. Sundar said this would exclude a sizeable proportion of workers.

 

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