BHUBANESWAR: AS the Covid-19 situation continues to be grim across the country, the government is waiting for the return of around six lakh migrants to the State again in the event of extended lockdown and shut down in various places.
Official sources maintained that though the return of the migrants will not pose much problem for the government this time around, providing them livelihood support is likely to be a difficult task.
The State government had started skill mapping of migrant returnees during the first wave last year. Skill mapping of around five lakh migrant workers had been done, Minister of State for Skill Development and Technical Education Premanand Nayak told this paper.
He, however, maintained that the follow up work was not completed as the situation returned towards normalcy before the second wave. He added that the work will be launched soon.
One of the important follow up of skill mapping migrants as announced by the government was to launch a web portal with complete details about workers and their skills.
Launching of the web portal would have helped the industries to employ workers as per their requirements.
Though around 10 lakh migrant workers had returned to the State last during the national lockdown, the State government did not put in place a system for their registration. Subsequently, 70 per cent of them returned to their work places.
Official sources maintained that without any registration, the State government now does not have exact data on how many of them returned to which states and which industries.
“A registration system would have helped the State government to remain prepared to create livelihood support for the migrants, once they returned. But it is now in the dark about this,” said Umi Daniel, Director, migration and education, Aide et Action International.
Besides these unresolved issues, the State government is yet to make anything public about the skill mapping of five lakh migrants.
“A total of 10,07,330 migrant workers had returned to their respective villages during the pandemic. Of them 1,81,702 workers were skilled workers and 5,54,754 were unskilled”, sources in the Labour and Employees Insurance department said.
They maintained that as majority of the migrant workers who returned to Odisha last year were mostly from textile, apparel and garment sector and construction sector.