New Delhi, May 19 (IANS): Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha member N.D. Gupta, here on Tuesday, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought deployment of civil defence personnel to facilitate safe movement of migrants. He also termed the exodus of migrants as a 'man-made disaster'.
Arguing for deployment of the paramilitary personnel, he said, "While compromises had to be made to avert the humanitarian crisis, we must refocus on containing the spread of coronavirus.
"We are witnessing that the state authorities, stressed with various responsibilities, are unable to manage the crisis. The situation of crores of Indians on road without the required preventive measures must be treated as a man-made disaster," Gupta wrote.
He said the Indian armed forces along with the paramilitary forces had always done a commendable job when called upon to aid civil authorities, especially, in the wake of natural calamities or man-made disasters.
The discipline, training, resources and professional approach of paramilitary forces could be used to minimise the duration of exposure of migrants, he said.
Seeking respite for business employers and employees, he said excess funds available with the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) be used to give unemployment allowance to migrant workers for the lockdown period.
"The Employees' State Insurance Scheme is an integrated measure of social insurance embodied in the Employees' State Insurance Act. It's designed to accomplish the task of protecting employees against impact of incidences of sickness, maternity, disablement and death due to employment injury and to provide medical care to insured persons and their families," the AAP leader said.
He said integrated schemes had also been introduced, such as the Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana -- a welfare measure for employees covered under Section 2(9) of ESI Act, 1948 -- to provide cash compensation up to 90 days as part of unemployment benefits, and the Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojana that provided unemployment allowance in the event of jobloss due to closure of factory/establishment, retrenchment or permanent invalidity.
"The ESIC has over 3.19 crore subscribers and a corpus of Rs 91,444.07 crore. Of this, Rs 23,151.77 crore is earmarked as reserve fund," Gupta said and pleaded an ordinance should be passed in these extraordinary times to use such funds "to pass on benefits to persons not receiving salary by identifying them as unemployed and eligible for immediate benefits under the ESI."