Jharkhand, which has a significant percentage of labourers who move out of the state for work, will enter into an agreement with nine states for the welfare of these migrant workers.
The decision of the state labour department was approved by the Hemant Soren-led cabinet on Friday evening in Ranchi.
“The Jharkhand government will enter into an agreement with nine states for the betterment and welfare of migrant workers of Jharkhand. Under the agreement, the states concerned will have to look after the safety and welfare of the migrant workers from Jharkhand in their respective states,” said Jharkhand cabinet secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh.
The states or Union Territory, which will ink the agreement with the Jharkhand labour department are Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
“We have selected the states on the basis of the number of migrant workers of Jharkhand. These are the identified corridors. Earlier, a similar agreement was signed between Odisha and old Andhra Pradesh and that was the first instance in the country,” said the secretary in the labour, employment, training and skill development department of Jharkhand, Rajesh Kumar Sharma.
The labour department of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh (before bifurcation into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) had entered into an agreement in 2011-12 for migrant labourers from Odisha working in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh.
According to the data available with the state migrant control room, there are over 15 lakh registered migrant workers from Jharkhand in other states. However, the number of unregistered migrant workers is close to 50 lakh, according to the Economic Survey 2017.
“We have launched several schemes to address issues and problems of migrant workers and based on the feedback we have decided to enter into an agreement with the destination states. The destination states will help us in linking the migrant workers with welfare schemes of the Centre and state government and also track them during emergencies,” Sharma said.
