Letter to BS: Govt should set up an exclusive fund for migrant labourers

The sight of thousands of migrant workers, with families in tow, walking back to their villages from Delhi is distressing. Despite the government’s promise of food, these poor labourers were compelled to undertake the arduous journey to reach the relative safety of their native places. In India, the whole system of governance has been hijacked by the rich and the well-to-do middle class. A typical example is a recent announcement by the Centre and the Rajasthan government to release the dearness allowances for their employees. These employees, who will anyway get paid for the period of the lockdown, are priority for the government, but the migrant labourers, earning less than Rs 500 per day, who have lost their sources of income, are left to fend for themselves.

It is time we set our priorities right. The need of the hour is to set up an exclusive fund for migrant labourers to provide them with unemployment insurance. I am sure our country can easily afford this by just shuffling its priorities.

Dinesh Kumar Sud  Shimla

Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to: 

The Editor, Business Standard

Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg 

New Delhi 110 002 

Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.in

All letters must have a postal address and telephone number