Only 5,000 out of 24 lakh registered skilled migrants got jobs in 116 districts

New Delhi: Government is said to have informed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour that though more than 24 Lakh migrant skilled labourers had registered for jobs in the wake of the COVID pandemic, only 5000 could be given employment in their home state.
The union ministry of Skill Development officials shared the figures with the parliamentary committee headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab during a meeting on Friday. The ministry had set up a portal- Atmanirbhar Skilled Employer Employee Mapping in April for skill mapping in 116 districts where the number of reverse migrants is above 25,000.

Sources said the government informed the panel that more than 24 Lakh migrants had registered voluntarily on this website to seek employment till June-end. While 2.1 Lakh were found adequately skilled for various jobs, 48,000 jobs were available in the market. But finally only 5,000 workers got jobs through this process.

This grim scenario is reportedly due to the offer of low wages not in keeping with the skills of the job-seeker, the job not being of the standard of the skill possessed, and some near impossible conditionalities put up by the prospective employer- like a short term training in another state before joining- which was clearly aimed at dissuading the worker.

The officials reportedly informed the Labour committee that the government is hopeful many of the migrants will return to the state where they were employed before the pandemic. However, they cited media reports as the basis for this conclusion, sources said. Some MPs countered this argument, saying this cannot be a concrete basis to assume the migrants will return soon considering the state of the pandemic and the job scenario.

The Rural Development Ministry officials also presented their case on the employment provided to migrants through MNREGA by various states. These cases pertain to seven states, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

While the employment curve under MNREGA in these states after the pandemic outbreak was high in April, May and June, there has been a drastic fall in July. This is attributed to the monsoon when work was scarce. However, despite this fall, the employment figures of July 2020 are three-fold higher than July 2019.

The ministry is confident that the funds available under MNREGA would be enough to sail through and maintained that the finance ministry has assured this will not be an issue in future if the need arises.

The union budget had allocated ?61,000 Cr under MNREGA while an additional ?40,000 has been announced by the Narendra Modi government after the pandemic struck.

The officials are believed to have informed the committee that states are being suggested to tap the un-utilised funds from the 15th Finance Commission, the District Mineral Fund and other government sources.

The Parliamentary panel sought to know from the officials if any provision is being made for providing jobs to workers in places other than their Panchayat- which is the practice under MNREGA- the government said the old norm is still in place. But the government has been proactive in issuing job cards to migrants in their panchayat area during this crisis, the officials claimed.

The panel has suggested that this should be made more flexible to facilitate employment to migrants. Panchayats are being encouraged to create more infrastructure in their area as this would help in providing employment to workers.