Context: Recently, NITI Aayog along with a working subgroup of officials and members of civil society has prepared a 'draft national migrant labour policy'.

• The policy is inspired by a rights-based approach spurred by the exodus of 10 million migrants (government estimates) from big cities during the Covid-19 lockdown.
• Earlier in December 2020, the Indian government decided to create a database of migrant workers, including workers in the informal economy.

Need for a migrant labour policy

• Issues with existing law: The Inter State Migrant Workers Act, 1979, designed to protect labourers from exploitation by contractors by safeguarding rights of migrant workers, covered only labourers migrating through a contractor and left out independent migrants.
• A comprehensive law not in place: Which would form the legal basis for an architecture of social protection.
• Paucity of data: There is limited merit in Census data that comes only once a decade.

Key highlight
The draft describes two approaches to policy design:

• One focussed on cash transfers, special quotas, and reservations;
• Two focussed on enhancing the agency and capability of the community and thereby remove aspects that come in the way of an individual’s own natural ability to thrive.

A rights-based approach

• The policy rejects a handout approach, opting instead for a rights-based framework.
• It seeks to remove restrictions on the true agency and potential of the migrant workers.
• The goal a/c to the document should not be to provide temporary or permanent economic or social aids”, which is “a rather limited approach”.
• Migration, the draft says, should be acknowledged as an integral part of the development and government policies should not hinder but…seek to facilitate internal migration.

Restructuring the institutions
The NITI draft lays down institutional mechanisms to coordinate between Ministries, states, and local departments to implement programmes for migrants.

• Nodal agency: It identifies the Ministry of Labour and Employment as the nodal Ministry for implementation of policies, and asks it to create a special unit to help to converge the activities of other Ministries.
• Resources centre: This unit would manage migration resource centres in high migration zones, a national labour Helpline, links of worker households to government schemes, and inter-state migration management bodies.
• Migration corridors: On the inter-state migration management bodies, it says that labour departments of source and destination states along major migration corridors, should work together through the migrant worker cells.
• Labour officers from source states can be deputed to destinations – e.g., Bihar’s experiment to have a joint labour commissioner at Bihar Bhavan in New Delhi.
• Role for Panchayats: Alongside the long-term goal, policies should promote the role of panchayats to aid migrant workers and integrate urban and rural policies to improve the conditions of migration.
• Migration management: Panchayats should maintain a database of migrant workers, issue identity cards and passbooks, and provide “migration management and governance” through training, placement, and social-security benefit assurance, the draft says.

Significance

• Remove restrictions: On true agency and potential of the migrant workers, removing aspects that come in the way of an individual’s own natural ability to thrive.
• Empowering migrant workers through a right-based approach: The goal of the policy should not be to provide temporary or permanent economic or social aids (limited approach).
• Migration an integral part of development: And government policies should not hinder but seek to facilitate internal migration. 
• Preventing exploitation: The draft points to the legal support and registrations tracking has the potential to prevent exploitation of migrant workers.

Recommendations of National Policy on Migrant Workers

• The Ministries of Panchayati Raj, Rural Development, and Housing & Urban Affairs need to use Tribal Affairs migration data to help create migration resource centres in high migration zones.
• The Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship needs to focus on skill-building at these centres.
• The Ministry of Education should take measures under the Right to Education Act to mainstream migrant children’s education, to map migrant children, and to provide local-language teachers in migrant destinations.
• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs should address issues of night shelters, short-stay homes, and seasonal accommodation for migrants in cities.
• The National Legal Services authority (NALSA) and Ministry of Labour should set up grievance handling cells and fast track legal responses for trafficking, minimum wage violations, and workplace abuses and accidents for migrant workers.

Road Ahead (as per the draft)

• Stem migration: Though the movement from agriculture to manufacturing and services was inherently linked to the success of migration in the country, the draft asks source states to raise minimum wages to bring major shifts in local livelihood of tribals, that may result in stemming migration to some extent.
• Creating community building organisations (CBO) in the source states: Their long term plan should be to alleviate distress migration policy initiatives by aiming for a more pro-poor development strategy in the sending areas.
• Promote the role of panchayats: To aid migrant workers and integrate urban and rural policies to improve the conditions of migration by maintaining a database of migrant workers.