New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic has thrown open a new challenge for India as several migrants lose homes and jobs. This indeed has forced the government to refine the phrase "migrant workers" after 41 years as the Centre plans to register then to enable access to social security and health benefits under the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation.
According to a report in Times of India, the central government is planning to enact a law on this by the end of the year. The report states that labour minister Santosh Gangwar has confirmed the legal framework was being strengthened and some of the provisions in the proposed Code, cleared by the standing committee of Parliament headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, may undergo further changes.
The redefinition of the term has been proposed under an updated Code on Social Security which the labour ministry will shortly take to the Union Cabinet.
The report states that the steps are seen to be crucial as the current legal framework is inadequate, something that was exposed by the exodus of migrants, with absence of any kind of record of employment which prompted a serious rethink in the government.
The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 applies to establishments with five or more inter-state migrant workers and to contractors involved in their hiring.
"This will mean that most migrant workers today will be outside the law's ambit," an official was quoted as saying.
The proposed legal framework will apply to individual migrant workers who earn up to a specified amount with even domestic helps included in its framework, the TOI report said.
While the ceiling wage will be defined through an executive order, the law will provide for it. These workers will enjoy benefit of portability of benefits across the country and be entitled to be given the fare to go home once every year, TOI quoted its sources as saying.
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