Govt to survey migrants who missed out on COVID-19 benefits

Under fire for the shoddy distribution of relief material, the state government is preparing to survey the city’s migrant workers to prepare a database of those hit by the Covid-19 lockdown.

Labour Secretary P Manivannan said while the state government declared it would deposit Rs 2,000 in the bank accounts of the construction workers, many of them did not receive any benefits.

In a letter to the secretary of the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, the labour secretary said workers should be enrolled since “it has been found that many construction labourers did not get the benefits”. Earlier, on May 2, the police wrote to the labour department with a list of 88,000 migrant labourers.

“It was directed to enroll the 88,000 migrants in five days. Per day, 10,000 workers should be enrolled. The details of the registration should be given to the government,” the letter said.

Asked if the government would include workers from unorganised sectors other than construction, Manivannan told DH that the government would take up a comprehensive survey of all migrant workers after it is done with workers hit by Covid-19.

“We will do that survey once the Covid-19 crisis is over,” he said.

People with respiratory ailments

Meanwhile, the BBMP has dispatched volunteers to conduct a door-to-door survey of people with Influenza-like Illness (ILI), Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and other coronavirus-related respiratory disorders.

Civic officials revealed that the Health Survey Team (HST) will conduct the survey simultaneously in all 198 wards. “A team of volunteers comprising of booth-level officers and teachers will visit every household and collect details of anyone with SARI, ILI and respiratory ailments,” BBMP commissioner B H Anil Kumar said.

“All citizens are requested to cooperate with these teams and provide details about their ailments," the commissioner added.