NEW DELHI: The Centre has said there would be distribution of food items once in 15 days at the doorsteps of beneficiaries like children, women and lactating mothers. However, experts said states would need to closely coordinate with civil society organisations to ensure the distribution of food items to beneficiaries.
“There is a need for localisation and decentralisation in order to reach out to communities. There are communities which are hidden from the city limits. It is not enough to have top-heavy intent. There is a need to have the ability to translate intent,” said Akhila Sivadas, executive director, Centre for Advocacy And Research.
Close coordination between state governments and civil society organisatons is the way ahead to ensure that the communities will benefit at the grassroot level from the set of guidelines issued by the Centre, said Umi Daniel, director, migration and education at Aide at Action International.
The Centre also said in its guidelines that there would be disbursement of social security pensions like old age/widow/freedom fighter pensions, and pensions and provident fund services provided by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The guidelines aim to ‘mitigate hardship’ with additional activities being allowed from April 20 amid the nationwide lockdown.
“The guidelines has largely left the crisis of migrant workers unaddressed. They are undocumented people. Most of our schemes are domicile-based. For most of the schemes in India, there is no portability available,” said Daniel.
Workers stranded in the urban areas and small-scale vendors would need to continue to fend for themselves with no access to rations and cooked food.