THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 28 April 2020 (Institutional challenges to migrants’ welfare (Indian Express))

Institutional challenges to migrants’ welfare (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:National 
Prelims level: Cess fund 
Mains level: Welfare scheme for migrant workers 

Context:

• The relief package announced by the finance minister on March 26 included a direction to all states.
• The labour ministry had previously estimated that about Rs 52,000 crore was available with states. 
• But, whatever the amount, this assistance is likely to be constrained in practice by low worker registrations, limited capacity for expenditure, significant variations across states, and issues of interstate migrants. 
• This will affect the ability of central and state governments to ensure wages to migrants, many of them construction workers.

Proper use of the cess money for welfare of the people: 

• States collect a cess from construction projects, register construction workers, and design schemes to use the funds collected for their welfare. 
• But states have not been very good at spending this money.
• The current crisis is an opportunity for them to improve their record, but this will need significant changes in practice.
• The overall registration of workersonly registered construction workers benefit from the welfare schemesitself has been unsatisfactory. 
• Figures from the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment show that 3.24 crore workers (estimated at 3.5 crore currently) were registered across the country as of end-2018, which represented about 60% of the construction workforce in India, as per PLFS 2017-18. Much of this progress is recent, after monitoring by the Supreme Court; registration increased by more than 50% between 2015 and 2018. 
• The field studies at labour chowks show that many workers remain unaware of this benefit.

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Limited subset of registered workers:

• But even for the limited subset of registered workers, the benefit would depend on the state in which they are registered, since there is wide variation in the availability of cess funds across states. 
• In 2018, the last year for which a state-wise breakup is officially available, half of the collected cess amount was in just six states—Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Conversely, six states—Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and West Bengal—have 54% of the registered workforce, but only 32% of cess funds collected.

Other issues: 

• There is the issue of migrant workers, many of who made desperate attempts to walk long distances home after the lockdown, who constitute 42.7% of the urban construction workforce (Census 2001). 
• The accompanying graphic shows that the largest concentration of migrant construction workers is in Maharashtra, Gujarat (low registration and low expenditure), undivided Andhra Pradesh, Haryana (high registration, low expenditure), Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh (high registration, high expenditure).
• Many workers walking home told journalists that they had little access to social security at work. 
• This is corroborated by fieldwork from several states showing that boards are reluctant to register migrants, and registration processes are onerous. Thus, 

How, then, do we mitigate this problem?

• The Centre can use the expertise of the Central Building and Other Construction Workers’ Advisory Committee to play a proactive role in coordinating amongst states, especially sending and receiving migrants. 
• It can facilitate sharing beneficiary lists and funds between these states, perhaps through interstate MoUs, to be used in combination with ground-level targeting, involving civil society and employers, to ensure that all workers get access to some minimum sustenance for the period of the lockdown. 
• A quick start can be made with high registration states that have a demonstrated capacity to spend.
• Stateslabour departments and welfare boards—must do much more to implement the law. 
• Much remains to be done to convey the benefits of registration, and to make it easily accessible. 
• The quarantine camps for migrants are, ironically, an opportunity to disseminate information, and even register such workers.

Conclusion:

• One can only hope that this crisis, having made their struggle visible, will improve construction workers’ lives a little, and shame states into ensuring that any future disaster does not leave them, literally, on the roads.

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General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1)With reference to the Chitra GeneLAMP-N, consider the following statements:
1. Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum, an Institute of National Importance, of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), has developed a diagnostic test kit that can confirm COVID19 in 2 hours at low cost.
2. It is highly specific for SARS-CoV-2 N-gene and can detect two regions of the gene.

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:
Q.1)What is the cess fund? How to use the cess fund for the welfare of migrant labourers across the country?