Kochi: Amidst the growing debate over migrant labourers in Kerala, the state labour department has revealed in an RTI reply that they still do not have data on the total number of migrants working here. The labour commissioner’s office made it clear that till date they have not conducted any study to find out the same.
The department is still relying on a study conducted in 2013 by Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, TVM. In a reply given to Dhanraj S. of Kochi, an RTI activist, the state labour commissioner’s office stated that as per the study conducted in 2013, there are 25 lakh migrant labourers in the state. R. Baiju, deputy labour commissioner and the Public Information officer gave the reply.
He also stated that only seven persons have registered at the commissionerate as contractors to bring migrants. The department also informed that the district wise list of contractors would be collected from the respective districts. According to them the department is collecting details of contractors who come forward to register their names.
Recently, the high court had pulled up the Ernakulam district administration for the pathetic treatment meted out by the contractors to the migrant labourers. At present, the government is not monitoring the flow of labourers to the state. The same is causing hardships for the police when it comes to investigation into a crime in a locality.
In majority of cases, the migrant labourers are getting mobile connections with the help of the contractor. So they are not even producing their own identity cards. Labour minister T.P. Ramakrishnan had recently claimed that the labour department will in a few months issue guidelines that will make registration of migrant labourers mandatory.
