Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Topic: Database of Migrants

Why in News?

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs that reviewed the COVID-19 management in the country has recommended the government to set up a database of the migrant workers and prepare a comprehensive healthcare legal framework to tackle any future pandemic.

Background

• The government is creating a national database of the unorganized workforce, including migrant labourers, and will seed their profiles with the 12-digit Aadhaar number to provide them social security coverage, the labour ministry said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
• The Labour and Employment Ministry has sought help from other ministries to build a new database for migrant workers and others in the unorganised sector, which it hopes to operationalise by May-June next year.
• Centre expects 20-25 crore unorganised workers to be added to the portal.

Modus Operandi

• The government will tap into existing databases of schemes such as Mahatma National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and One Nation, One Ration Card, along with data from Employees’ State Insurance Corporation and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, to create a unique registration for migrant workers.
• Since multiple databases will be used, a de-duplication exercise using Aadhaar data will be undertaken prior to registration for the new portal, which the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is developing.
• Details of gig and platform workers and other unorganised sector workers will be separately added to this database.

Towards Social Security

• The new database will also be the first step towards “initiating social security measures for unorganised sector workers under the Code on Social Security, 2020”.
• The code proposes the formation of a National Social Security Board which will recommend suitable schemes for different sections of unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers.
• There are around 8-10 crore workers registered under NREGA. About 10-15 lakh would be gig and platform workers.
• One Nation, One Ration card is a big database, around 30-35 crore people under it. But many would be common between NREGA and One Nation, One Ration. So those would be duplications.

Need for the Database

• Migrant labourers, abandoned by employers and the state, undertaking an arduous journey home, in many cases walking hundreds of kilometres on the highways, became the defining image of the national lockdown during the pandemic.
• The exodus from the cities exposed the gaping holes in the safety net. The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, required all establishments who hired inter-state migrants to be registered, as well as all contractors who recruited these workers to be licensed.
• Proper implementation of this law would have ensured that information on inter-state migrants would have been readily available to aid the state machinery in its relief efforts.
• However, no such detailed records were maintained, and information on the number of migrants, and their whereabouts, was unavailable to both central and state governments.