A
bench of justices Ashok Bhushan and MR Shah had on June 11 reserved its
judgement on pleas of activists Anjali Bharadwaj, Harsh Mander and Jagdeep
Chhokar seeking the implementation of welfare measures for such workers.
The
fresh plea was filed in a pending suo motu case of 2020 in which the top court
had in May last year taken cognisance of problems and miseries of migrant
labourers and had passed a slew of directions, including asking states not to
charge fare from migrant workers and provide them free food till they board
trains or buses.
While
reserving the order, the bench had asked the states and union territories (UTs)
to implement 'one nation, one ration card'' (ONORC) scheme as it allows migrant
workers to get ration at the place of their work in other states as well where
their ration cards are not registered.
The
Centre had said that while most states were implementing the ONORC, four of
them -- Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and West Bengal -- had not done so and
implementing it would depend on their technical readiness.
The
Centre later also said the AAP government''s claim regarding the launch of
ONORC plan is misleading as a large number of migrant workers are unable to
take the benefit of subsidised National Food Security Act (NFSA) food grains in
Delhi as there is no full implementation.
The
bench had taken strong note of the delay in development of a software meant to
register workers of unorganised sector to create a national database and had
posed queries to the Centre as to how the benefit of free food grain till
November this year under the ''Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna'' would reach
migrant labourers having no ration cards.
The
activists have sought directions to the Centre and states to ensure food
security, cash transfers, transport facilities and other welfare measures for
the migrant workers on grounds that they are in dire need for help as the
crisis is bigger during the second wave.
Earlier
on May 24, the top court had termed “very slow” the process of registration of
unorganised workers and had directed authorities to provide dry ration and make
operational community kitchens for migrant workers stranded throughout the
country amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Referring
to the resurgence of COVID-19 infections and consequent curbs, the activists
have said in their plea that the problems faced by migrant workers during the
lockdown in 2020 have persisted over the past year due to the continued
economic distress and now have got aggravated on account of fresh restrictions,
curfews and lockdowns being imposed in many states to control the spread of
COVID.
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