Page 41 - Shelter-October-2022

THEME PAPER
time and the government’s
own policy documents
recognised the magnitude and
complexity of the issue, before
the pandemic, the inclusion of
migrants was not taken up in a
focused way in policy.
HOW THE WHEELS
TURNED: RESPONSES TO
THE MIGRANT CRISIS
The 2020 migrant crisis
did not elicit a cohesive
policy response from the
government. The NITI Aayog
made a promising start by
convening a sub-group on the
issue of migrant labour and
drafting a policy document,
but this has not yet been
finalised. Instead, the crisis
triggered several disparate
relief measures and policy
reactions located at multiple
levels of government and
across various sectors, which
largely built on existing
schemes and frameworks.
Without getting into an
exhaustive description, here
is a brief summarisation
under a few broad categories,
viz. registration and tracking,
portability, facilitation and
housing.
Registration and tracking
Registration of migrants is
a key feature of the Inter
State Migrant Workmen
Act (ISMWA) and though
the Act has been weakly
implemented, the notion that
improved state response is
contingent on robust systems
to register and enumerate
migrants is well-embedded in
the policy imagination. Pre-
pandemic efforts to register
migrants at source through
panchayat level registers have
now gained traction in several
source states. Several state
governments also captured
data on migrants who
returned during the pandemic
and conducted skill mapping
exercises with the intent of
designing better interventions
for livelihood support and
skill development.
Conversations have also
moved beyond the purview
of work and employment.
For example, in Maharashtra,
the Women and Child
Development Department
has developed a system to
enumerate and track women
and children who migrate
seasonally from vulnerable
source areas to their work
destinations in order to
ensure continuity in the
delivery of schemes related to
maternal and child health and
nutrition.
At the central level, MoLE
has set up an E-Shram
portal for self-registration of
unorganised workers across
India, on the behest of the
Supreme Court. This is a first- in order to enable portability
time at-scale attempt to set up
a digitally backed database
that enables unique links to
individual beneficiaries. The
portal is expected to smoothen
the delivery of welfare,
though challenges related
to identifying interstate axis of exclusion.
October, 2022, Volume 23. No.2 - SHELTER
migrants as a specific subset
are still being addressed.
It is also important to note that
the unavailability of detailed
migration tables from the
last decadal Census in 2011,
the delay of the 2021 Census
and the failure of the National
Sample Survey Organisation
to regularly collect data on
migration present a particular
challenge where multiple
registries co-exist without a
reliable statistical base.
Portability
Advocates for migrant
inclusion have, for a long
time, highlighted the need
for portability, i.e. ensuring
that beneficiaries can access
welfare regardless of location.
In response, the One Nation
One Ration Card (ONORC)
was floated in 2019 as a
key measure to make PDS
benefits accessible to seasonal
migrants. The distribution
of free food grains through
the PDS was a key element
of the Government of India’s
pandemic relief package.
State governments were
urged to hasten the seeding
of their ration card databases
with Aadhaar information
under the ONORC system.
While logistical and fiscal
challenges remain in terms
of implementation, this is
a significant policy step
forward in recognising and
addressing mobility as a key
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