Relevance: Prelims/Mains: G.S paper II: Polity: Governance: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes; mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.
Context:
• At a webinar Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister spoke about the problems of those who have to move out of the state to earn their livelihoods.
• 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 salience of 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 overtone when 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 announcement of a nationwide lockdown dried up their sources of livelihood.
• While the UP government did mobilise buses to ferry back stranded migrants, a large number of them have had to undertake arduous journeys to return home.
• Earlier this month, the UP government sparred with the government of Maharashtra over logistics for the returning migrants.
• Last week, it engaged in a battle of one-upmanship with the Opposition Congress over buses to transport workers back to the state.
• Unfortunately, on this issue, the U.P government does not seem to be an exception.
• Buses from Jharkhand have reportedly been turned back from the Bengal border, the Bihar government gave only a reluctant nod to bringing migrants by Shramik Special trains, Jharkhand has accused Chhattisgarh of sending back people who tested COVID-19, and it took a public uproar for the Karnataka government to revoke its order cancelling trains for migrants.
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.
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