The Kerala government has decided to compile comprehensive data on unskilled migrant labour with a view to assessing its impact on the socio-economic fabric of the State.
The Planning and Economic Affairs department has tasked the Director, Economics and Statistics department, to carry out the survey in association with the Labour department. The decision follows a recommendation by the Committee on Estimates (2019-21) of the 14th Kerala Assembly in its 25th report.
The government decision, incidentally, comes at a time when law and order linked to migrant workers have triggered concern, the latest surrounding the murder of a worker from Assam in Kozhikode district.
Back then, the Assembly committee had recommended that statistics on unskilled migrant labour be incorporated in the State's economics and statistical data so that a clear picture emerges on how the surge in population has impacted the social and economic sectors.
Remittance flow
Noting the increase in the number of migrant workers in various sectors, the panel observed that social problems on account of their shortcomings in terms of education and awareness of the law were on the rise. Their increasing presence in the unskilled labour sector is also leading to remittances flowing from Kerala to their native States, it said.
The Economics and Statistics department has reported that exhaustive statistics on migrant labour were not available, the September 28 order of the Planning and Economic Affairs department noted.
The Economic Review 2021, tabled in the Assembly in March this year, had estimated the number of other-State migrants in Kerala in 2017-18 at 31.5 lakhs. The pre-COVID-19 estimate was based on ‘A Study on In-migration, Informal Employment and Urbanisation in Kerala' by the State Planning Board. Construction (17.5 lakh) and manufacturing (6.3 lakh) sectors tended to attract a majority of the workers, according to the Economic Review.
In recent years, the State government had floated a number of schemes on health insurance coverage, housing and literacy for improving the living conditions of other-State workers. Assembly records show that 5.16 lakh ‘Aawaz’ insurance cards had been issued from November 2017 till August this year.
