Migrant workers may want to go residence, says Supreme Court

Scared, unemployed and hungry, migrant workers may simply want to go residence and can hardly look after the finer nuances of “national” and “mini” lockdowns imposed by the federal government on the populace, the Supreme Court mentioned on Monday.

“Whether it was the national lockdown in 2020 or mini lockdowns in 2021, psychologically the attitude of migrant workers remains the same — they would want to go home,” Justice M.R. Shah addressed the Centre.

A Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Shah was listening to a suo motu case to present migrant labourer households marooned in huge cities dry rations and cooked meals and public transport to workers travelling residence to their villages, the place they suppose they might be protected from the clutches of the virus.

Justice Shah’s comment got here when the federal government mentioned the scenario in 2021 was totally different from final yr, when your complete nation was shut down to curb an infection.

Responding rapidly, the federal government submitted it had opened management rooms. But the Centre mentioned it was the duty of States to present cooked meals for stranded migrant workers.

The court docket, not fairly taken in by the submissions, referred to an affidavit filed by the federal government. Justice Bhushan mentioned the doc talked about solely folks coated below the Food Security Act, that’s, folks with ration playing cards. The court docket mentioned unorganised labourers, wandering from one place of job to one other in mega cities, can’t be anticipated to have ration playing cards.

The court docket requested the Centre to file an additional affidavit detailing every part it has carried out to present dry rations to migrant workers below the Atmanirbhar scheme.

Initially, through the starting of the listening to, Justice Bhushan sounded sceptical, questioning whether or not the migrants’ plight within the second wave was as unhealthy as final yr. Justices Bhushan and Shah had handed a plethora of orders for the welfare of the migrant workers in 2020.

“This time the situation is not as grim as last time,” Justice Bhushan mentioned.

“In fact, it is grimmer this time… Public health has been more severely affected in the second wave. As a result, more people have again lost their jobs,” advocate Prashant Bhushan, who has accused the Centre and States of a lacklustre strategy in direction of migrant workers, mentioned.

Mr. Bhushan mentioned 24 crore folks had been pushed below the poverty line. He mentioned States like Delhi and Uttar Pradesh ought to present migrants cooked meals in authorities faculties.

“People are dying because of lack of food and health. Yes, the situation is worse than last year… Rickshaw pullers, vendors and other categories of unorganised workers are starving,” Mr. Bhushan disagreed with the decide.

The lawyer pushed for the court docket to direct the States to evolve a money switch mechanism to assist these destitute workers keep alive. “Ultimately, the money will come back into the economy. These people will use the cash to buy food and essentials… our growth rate is –20%,” Mr. Bhushan prodded.

Justice Bhushan mentioned any such money transfers can be based mostly on separate insurance policies of particular person States, and the court docket might look into the difficulty.