Shillong: The Meghalaya Labour Department is currently working to identify unorganised labourers who have been badly affected by the second wave of Covid-19 lockdown, and will be in a position to help them once the data is verified.
GHP Raju, principal secretary, labour department, on Monday informed that the Supreme Court had advised the labour department to identify these daily wage earners (vegetable sellers, meat sellers, fruit sellers, etc) since many had lost their livelihood due to the lockdown.
“We are trying to identify these unorganised labourers. As of now, the hawkers’ list is available with other departments like the Municipal department. But there is no source of the authentic unorganised labourers’ data available as of now. We requested all our field officers to take the help of the Deputy Commissioners and their staff to identify and enlist these unorganised labourers. Once we have the data, we will be in a position to help them in this second wave of Covid,” said Raju.
In this second wave, Meghalaya, fortunately, did not witness any migrant workers leaving the state or coming back.
According to the Principal Secretary, none of the migrant labourers left Meghalaya or went back to other states. The department is closely monitoring the situation and is in touch with migrant labourers.
During the first wave of COVID-19, the labour department released Rs 5,000 for each registered worker, known as Meghalaya Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (MBOCWWB). There are nearly 25,000 registered workers as of 31 March 2021 under this board.
The MBOCWW allows construction and building-related workers to avail benefits from a corpus maintained by the Labour Commission. The labourers have to register with the Labour Commission. They can also register as members of the board.
Seeing the positive response from the board, nearly 50-60,000 applicants have enrolled with the board and verification is going on, said Raju.
The department is also working to complete its mission to transfer financial assistance announced by the Meghalaya government last year during the first wave of Covid-19. The government had allocated Rs 38 crore as immediate relief to migrant labourers who had returned to the state. This scheme was called as Chief Minister’s Relief Against Wage Loss (CMRAWL), wherein a transfer of Rs 700 per week would be transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.
“The government had last year announced about CMRAWL, there were 2 lakh returnees out of which actual labourers were mixed with returnees. There were three instalments of Rs 700, which was a total of Rs 2,100 per family for a migrant labourer. We had invited them to submit their names and bank accounts,” said Raju.
Out of approximately 2.30 lakh who had submitted, only 1.8 lakh applicants’ bank accounts could be verified.
The department had entrusted the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to collect the details (bank account, IFSC code and name of the migrant labourer). The department had strictly made this a bank transfer and relied on the SBI and HDFC Bank for support.
“The banks were successful in releasing the amount to roughly 1.4 lakh accounts, and the remaining 38-39,000 accounts were rejected because of non-tallying of IFSC code or the bank account holder’s name with the bank given by the labourer was incorrect,” mentioned Raju.
The banks completed the first transfer of Rs 700, and after that, the account refused to accept the next instalments.
According to the Principal Secretary, there was an NGO that raised this issue. “A committee was constituted to go deeply into this entire matrix of ensuring the cash transfers to the accounts of those migrant labourers. This exercise is still going on, and last week, we again requested the bank authorities to transfer the balance amount to those who have received only Rs 700 since they are entitled to receive Rs 1400,” stated Raju.
The labour department has again sent 18,000 account holders details after verification of the defective bank account, but again the bank succeeded to transfer to 3,000 accounts, and the remaining 15,000 accounts faced the same technical issues: IFSC code or the account is inactive.
The secretary of the department is still on the job with the next option to send the labourer inspectors to the addressee who has given the address. The department verifies whether the labourer is available or not. “We have to verify at least 16,000-17,000 bank accounts. It is a huge exercise with another challenge: lack of manpower since the labour department has limited staff and can’t be given to other agencies,” mentioned Raju.
With the labour department in a dilemma, the other option is that the beneficiary has to come to the nearest labour inspector office of the dist HQ and claim. It will be transferred that exercise is on, but it will take some time, said Raju.
He added that so far, Rs 29 crore have already been transferred last year. The remaining Rs 7 core are still there in the labour department.