Reverse migration, suspension of labour laws on table of Parliamentary Standing Committee meet on Monday

Reverse migration and several state governments' moves to suspend laws related to workers during during the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown will come up for discussion at a meeting of a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Monday.

Sources said Standing Committee on Labour will take a briefing from the senior officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment on the steps taken after the announcement of lockdown to help work force, migrant workers and dilution of labour laws by several state governments during this period.

The multi-party panel will be briefed about the number of migrant labourers who returned to home states and the steps taken by the Centre to provide help to them.

According to the Ministry's statistics as on July 9, 86.14 lakh migrant workers left their working places for home states after the lockdown was announced while 1.90 lakh stayed back.

Among the states, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 32.49 lakh migrant workers returning home followed by Bihar (15 lakh), West Bengal (13.84 lakh) and Rajasthan (13.08 lakh). States like Kerala (3.11 lakh) and Maharashtra (1.82 lakh) also had substantial number of migrant workers coming back.

While trade union leaders and activists point out that these numbers are just a miniscule of the migrant workers in the country, sources said the reverse migration in a way is helping the government to map them. The governments so far had no authentic data on migrant workers.

The panel was to meet on July 15 to discuss the issues but was postponed after the panel chairperson Bhartruhari Mahtab went in to self isolation after a Parliamentary staff, who attended a meeting earlier with the senior BJD MP, tested positive for Covid-19.

However, several MPs have expressed their inability to attend the meeting due to the pandemic situation and quarantine regulations in their states and have demanded a digital meet instead. Mahtab himself had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking video conferencing but it was denied citing procedures.

The officials will also brief the committee about the "labour reforms" initiated by the states. Officials will also brief about the provision for setting up a portal to create data base for migrant workers including having facility of voluntary submission of data by self employed persons coming to the destination states, sources said adding, only Aadhaar number has been made mandatory.

The Labour panel's meeting will be the third meeting in ten days of a Parliamentary panel on Covid-19. The first one was by the Standing Committee on Science and Technology headed by senior Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on July 10 when top officials told the panel that a Covid-19 vaccine is expected only after a year while the panel on Home Affairs led by Congress Deputy Leader Anand Sharma asked officials to check black marketing of Covid-19 drugs like Remdesivir.

The Standing Committee on Health headed by Samajwadi Party MP Ramgopal Yadav will also meet on August 4 to discuss Covid-19 situation.