Context: Recently, the first Draft National Policy on Migrant Labour was prepared by NITI Aayog and a working sub-group as a response to the Covid fallout on migrants.

Key proposals in the draft policy

• Mechanisms to “enable voting” so that political inclusion will “enhance accountability of political leadership towards welfare of migrant workers of their respective states.”
• The policy identified the challenges, and underlined how “political exclusion” leaves migrants “unable to make political demands for entitlements or seek reforms.”

Ministry of Labour to set up a special unit on migration.

• Inter-state migration management bodies to cover the nation’s key migration corridors.
• Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai; Bihar and Delhi; Western Odisha and Andhra Pradesh; Rajasthan and Gujarat, and Odisha and Gujarat.

Each state should establish a migrant workers section in their Labour department. Source states should send nodal officers to destination states to work collectively with the labour officers.

• Government policies should not hinder but seek to facilitate internal migration.

Migrants should be the target of Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) programmers in urban centres.

• Access to health and other social protection programmes should be portable across state borders.
• Skill mapping; using Aadhaar to avail of social security schemes, psycho-social assistance through a national helpline.
• The draft flags how a fragmented labour market obscures supply chains and relationships between business owners and workers.
• The draft policy calls for a “rights-based” approach that taps the migrants’ potential rather than hand-outs and cash-transfers.