Telangana State plans to home migrants forever

Hyderabad: In a move to check the migrant workers from leaving Telangana during the crisis time and to attract semi-skilled and skilled workforce from across the country and try to see that they stay in the state permanently, the Telangana government would bring in a special welfare policy for all migrant workers soon.

The policy is likely to extend all benefits of various welfare schemes to the migrant workers, issue ration cards, provide free education and medical facilities to their family members.

The state government has taken serious note of the migrant workers returning to their native places during the corona crisis. As a result, the key industrial and manufacturing and also the construction sectors have been hit hard due to lack of workforce during the lockdown period. More than 2 lakh migrant workers engaged in different sectors left Telangana following lockdown last year. Under the present lockdown another 50,000 workers left to their native places in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Officials said that more than 5 lakh workers migrated to Telangana for livelihoods since 2014. But due to the problem of migration, pharma, construction, rice mills, and textiles industries are facing severe shortage of workers.

The Government, officials said, wants to create such conditions so that the migrant labour can make the State their permanent home. This was decided at a meeting chaired by Labour and Employment Minister Ch Malla Reddy on Saturday.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would hold a high-level meeting to finalise the modalities for the welfare of migrant workers sometime during last week of June.