Sohini Chatterjee
Supreme Court directed the Center and the States to provide the stranded Migrant workers with cooked food or dry ration. This step was taken to prevent the same condition of the migrant workers as was seen last year during the Covid lockdown.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and M R Shah said that the court is directing the “States/Centers”, that the migrant worker should be provided with dry ration under the Atma Nirbhar Scheme or any other scheme that is applicable. This should be given to all the migrant workers who are stranded throughout the country. The court resorted to the ‘continuous mandamus doctrine’ in a suo moto case that was initiated last year which had the caption “Problems and Miseries of Migrant Workers”, and gave the above statement thereby.
The state and the central governments were also ordered by the court to complete the registration of all the migrant workers present in all the unorganized sectors.
The SC also ordered to draft suitable audit mechanisms so as to ensure the reach-ability of the benefits to the migrant workers in absolute need, as laid down in the social welfare schemes.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan sought a direction for the governments to adopt a uniform cash transfer scheme to the migrant workers to improve their conditions.
To this the bench said that since cash transfer is a policy matter, no direction can be issued to the States or Union regarding this matter unless it falls under an already existing scheme of the State/Union.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that he would be obtaining instructions for the preparation of a Comprehensive National database for Unorganised workers, from the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
All States have framed rules and some States have undertaken the registration under the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008, but none have given any details about the completion of the work, the bench said.
The SC expects the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the States of the country to collaborate and complete the creation of the National Database for Unorganised Workers at the earliest.