Bhopal, June 4 (IANS): Millions of labourers are returning to their home states by trains or buses. In Madhya Pradesh too, nearly six lakh workers have returned to their homes and this figure is expected to reach 10 lakh. Efforts are on to provide employment to these labourers and the government is conducting a survey for this purpose.
Data provided by the state government till Wednesday evening shows that so far about 5.87 lakh workers have been brought back to the state from various locations. Additional Chief Secretary I.C.P. Keshari said that 1.76 lakh labourers have been brought back by trains while 4.11 lakh were brought back in buses.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has given instructions to provide employment by surveying the workers. According to official details, the survey was earlier to be done by June 3, which has been extended to June 6.
Official sources said that the Labour Department has instructed the district magistrates that the survey of the workers should be completed by the secretary in the village panchayats, employment assistant and ward in-charge in the urban areas. This work is being done through a mobile app developed by the NIC (National Information Centre).
According to the government's action plan, after registering the migrant workers, they will be given the benefit of the schemes. Information on the registration will also be made available to the Rural Development Department, so that interested workers can be given work in MNREGA. Besides, free food grains will be made available to the eligible labourers under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana by the Food Department.
The Chief Minister has directed to provide employment opportunities to skilled and unskilled labourers keeping in view the reverse migration of 10 to 13 lakh labourers to the state. According to Chouhan, Shramsiddhi Abhiyan has been started in the state to provide work to unskilled labourers. At the same time, short and long term planning should be undertaken to provide jobs to skilled labourers according to their merit. The state government has formulated the 'Rojgar Setu' scheme for this.
According to Manoj Shrivastava, Additional Chief Secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development Department, workers are being given employment in the state through the Shramsiddhi campaign. The MNREGA helpline is also functioning in most of the districts. About six lakh new job cards have been issued.
It has been reported that most of the workers returning to the state are coming from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Karnataka and Rajasthan and they are engaged in building and other construction work, brick kilns, mining, work in factories, textiles, agriculture and allied activities.