Against workers(Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:Governance
Prelims level: Migration Commission
Mains level: Welfare schemes for the vulnerable sections

Context:

• At a webinar Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath spoke about the problems of those who have to move out of the state to earn their livelihoods.
• He announced that a “Migration Commission” will be established to help workers who have returned to the state amid the lockdown.
• The Commission will find ways to guarantee social security to workers, provide them jobs according to their skills.
• The CM also criticised other states for not taking care of workers from UP during the lockdown.

Misplaced concern:

• For sure, the salienceof welfare schemes for migrants — insurance, legal support, unemployment allowance — and the need for better employment avenues for them, cannot be overstated.
• The UP CM’s stated concern for the dignity of workers from the state in workplaces in other states is also welcome.
• But a relevant intervention on an important issue framed by the ongoing public health emergency assumed a problematic overtonewhen the UP CM said: “Without our permission, our people cannot be taken by other states”.
• Quite simply, what the chief minister has proposed is against the interests of the workers he is professing concern for.
• It also goes against a fundamental tenet of the Constitution: Clauses d and e of Article 19 guarantee citizens the right to move freely throughout the country.

Questions and Unseemly interventions:

• The public exchange on the issue of the stranded and vulnerable migrant workforce has thrown up several questionable and unseemly interventions so far.
• More than 20 lakh migrants have reportedly returned to UP in the two months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of a nationwide lockdown dried up their sources of livelihood.
• While the UP government did mobilise buses to ferryback stranded migrants, a large number of them have had to undertake arduousjourneys to return home.
• Earlier this month, the UP government sparredwith the government .........................................................................................

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Conclusion:

• The UP government can be said to be attempting to use the emergency created by the pandemic to give itself undue powers over its citizens.
• The decision of workers to return to their worksites, or not, is best left to them. Of course, the home states may have legitimate worries about their working conditions.
• Negotiations between states should inform efforts to create and strengthen social security for workers — not unilateral, unconstitutional decisions.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q1. With reference to the World Schizophrenia Day, consider the following statements:
1. May 24 is observed as World Schizophrenia Day.
2. Schizophrenia is a psychosis, a type of mental illness characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self and behaviour.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer:

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Mains Questions:
Q1. What do you mean by the Migration ................................................................