Finance Ministry Moves to Set Up Database of Migrant Workers

Besides job opportunities, such a database will help migrant labour get the benefit of government schemes

The Finance Ministry has given its go-ahead for the creation of the first ever national database of migrant labour to provide a platform for workers and employers, and for the government to implement specific programmes for such labourers.

The Ministry of Labour & Employment has envisaged development of a ‘National Database of Unorganised Workers’ (NDUW) seeded with Aadhaar. The project will enrol all unorganised workers, including migrant workers. “Total cost is expected around ₹650 crore. It will help workers to share information about his/her skill which, in turn, will make it easy for employers to find suitable person,” a senior Labour Ministry official said.

Workers will be encouraged to enrol on the website. Common Service Centre can be used in this process. Such a database can be used in many ways, apart from being a platform for employer and potential employee. It can be helpful in providing welfare schemes or implementing social security initiatives. Also, the movement of labour can be tracked in a situation like a Covid-induced lockdown so they can be assisted when in desperation.

The issue of migrant labour has become a topic of hot debate during the pandemic as government failed to give information about number of migrant labour or job loss in informal sector as it does not have any database. Though some States did collect data of labourers who had returned home labours returned back from metro cities such as Delhi and Mumbai or even from industrial hubs such as Surat, Ahmedabad, etc, a sizable number was left out due to various reasons such as lost in transit, return through unconventional routes and not reporting to local administration, etc.

A rough estimation of size

The Code on Occupational Health, Safety and Working Conditions enables the provision for maintaining a database of migrant workers to help in targeting, skill mapping and utilising government schemes effectively. The Code ensures that migrant workers get journey allowance once a year from employers to visit their home towns.

Migrant workers keep moving from one place to another place in search of work and such workforce also keeps shifting from one sector to another depending upon the opportunities (such as more wages, duration, and continuity of work), hence, it is not easy to keep record/data of migrant labour workforce.

However, according to the Economic Survey 2016-17, the size of the workforce as per Census 2011 was 482 million people and based on extrapolation, this figure would have exceeded 500 million in 2016. If the share of migrants in the workforce is estimated to be even 20 per cent, the size of the migrant workforce can be estimated to be over 100 million in 2016 in absolute terms.