NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed states to grant ration cards to migrant or unorganized workers who do not have them but are registered on the centre’s e-Shram portal, within three months.
Noting that out of 28.60 crore workers registered on the portal, only 20.63 crore are registered on ration card data, a bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said migrants/unorganised labourers due to non-registration may be deprived of the benefit of the schemes and maybe the benefit under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
“Without the ration card, a migrant/unorganized labourer or his family members may be deprived of the benefit of the schemes and maybe the benefit under the National Food Security Act. Therefore, being a welfare state, it is the duty of the concerned State/UT to see that the remaining registrants on e-Shram, who are still not registered on ration card data and who are not issued the ration cards, are issued ration cards and the exercise for issuance of ration cards is required to be expedited.” Court’s order came in its suo moto plea regarding the condition of migrants during CoVID.