Govt: 1 crore migrants back home, just 2.4 lakh outside

NEW DELHI: Close to one crore migrant workers have reached their home states since the coronavirus-induced lockdown was imposed across the country, and only 2.4 lakh migrants remain outside, new Union labour ministry data suggests.
The data, released by the chief labour commissioner on July 16, bases its calculations on information provided by only 25 out of 36 state governments and Union Territories administrations, who updated information about migrant workers and shared the details.
This is only the second time the Union labour ministry has released migrants’ information since May, when the government launched a ‘National Migrant Information System’ under which it directed all states to register migrants’ details on the online portal. States like Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, which are understood to account for sizeable populations of migrant workers, have not shared any updated data.
Even though the chief labour commissioner had sought exhaustive information about the migrants inlcuding their names, age, mobile numbers, occupation, details of migrants’ current and native address, bank, Ujjwala and Aadhaar details of workers, the data available in public domain remains sketchy and limited to those who have returned home and those who have stayed back in destination states.