Migrants could get a job in any state as domicile quotas may go

DOMICILE PROVISIONS FOR WORK CAN

PLACE MIGRANTS AT A DISADVANTAGE AND MUST BE DONE AWAY WITH, COMMITTEE SAYS

NEW DELHI: States may soon find themselves unable to bar migrants from applying for jobs or getting their children admitted in schools based on domicile provisions (minimum duration of local residence).

Domicile provisions in laws relating to work or any other specified conditions of employment can place migrants at a disadvantage in terms of employment and must be done away with, a panel constituted by the Union housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) ministry has said.

The panel headed by Partho Mukhopadhyay, senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research, submitted its report to the ministry last month.

Apart from ending the domicile provision, the working group on migration has pushed for portability of Public Distribution System (PDS) benefits across the fair price shop system, affordable housing options and setting up of a helpline to provide information about protections and benefits available to migrants.

In India, migrants constitute approximately 29 % of the workforce.

Migrants, especially in states such as Maharashtra, have often been at the receiving end of discrimination because of their outsider status.

Urban sector experts have welcomed the move. “Many argue that the provisions outlining domicile/minimum duration of local residence are required in order to protect local workers. But these arguments are ill-founded and mischievous… What is needed are strong regulations pertaining to wages and conditions at work, which would prevent all workers — local or migrant — from being exploited,” said Indrajit Roy, research fellow, department of international development, University of Oxford.

Roy, the principal investigator of University of Oxford’s study Lives on the Move, said some states are already ahead of the curve. “For example, Punjab is one of the states to have instituted a Migrant Welfare Board and Kerala inaugurated an InterState Migrant Worker Scheme, implemented through the Kerala Construction Workers Welfare Fund.”

The 2017 Economic Survey report has also recommended portability of PDS benefits. Under the PDS, people’s ration cards are invalid in their destinations of work. CONT’D ON P6