All about the new Safe and Responsible Migration Initiative

RANCHI: Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren announced the Safe and Responsible Migration Initiative (SRMI) at the Project Building Secretariat on Thursday, December 16. The initiative will enable the authorities in institutionalising the registration of migrant workers. The formulated system will help authorities for monitoring and analysing the source and the destination districts of the migrant workers. A ‘labor consulate’ or a help desk will be set up – one in Ladakh and the other in Kerala. 

The SRMI pilot project, the migration of workers from Dumka, West Singhbum, and Gumla were kept in mind. Currently, a database of migrant workers, who have received employment in Delhi, Kerala, and Leh-Ladakh, is being prepared. The rights of migrant workers in terms of socio-economic justice are being prioritized and a framework for coordination with all the states is underway. 

A rule has been formulated to prevent migrant workers from being exploited in any way. Following the first success of this pilot project, the scope of the system can be expanded. Despite large-scale migration from Jharkhand to other states and nations, the CM stated there was no suitable policy in place to protect the rights of migrant workers.

“It is the state government’s attempt that we can compile a complete database of all the labors and migrant workers from Jharkhand who move to other states or countries in quest of employment and help them during calamities under the policy,” CM Soren said. “Certainly, migration to Jharkhand has felt like a very huge and extremely frightening matter during the recent COVID-19 period,” he said.