Covid-19: Massive job, food security plan for migrants in Odisha
BHUBANESWAR: Conscious of the fact that livelihoods of returning workers will be just as tough as the containment of Covid-19, the Naveen Patnaik government on Tuesday announced a doubling of the number of jobs offered under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to 10 lakh.
Currently, the government is generating 5 lakh MGNREGS works per day.
Reviewing the situation with Covid-19 observers, 22 IAS senior IAS officers entrusted with responsibility of the 30 districts through videoconferencing, Naveen asked them, “to make MGNREGS works target-oriented and double the mandays created daily by the next week.”
The government is currently spending around Rs 10 crore per day on wages under the assured job scheme, which will increase to Rs 20 crore within a week. The government gives Rs 207 wages per person per day. A government officer said the target is to ramp up the works gradually to more than 20 lakhs per day. “There is no fund constraint in the central sponsored scheme. Works relating to water conservation, individual assets creation and natural preservation natural resources will be taken up on priority,” he said.
The Centre bears the entire cost of wages and provides 75% cost of materials under the scheme while the state bears the rest 25%.
The CM also asked the officers to ensure food safety of the returnees irrespective of whether they possess rations cards under National Food Security Act or State Food Security Act, a CMO statement said. “For now containment of Covid-19 is the principal duty of all senior officers. You all must be careful of this fact,” he told the officers.
Asking the officers to get ready for the future challenges keeping in mind the evolving situation within the next eight to 10 days, Naveen asked them to ensure more facilities at the panchayat level for the returnees. While around 5 lakh stranded workers from across the country registered with the government in a span of just 72 hours of the portal being functional, far outnumbering the quarantine facilities for 2.27 lakh people the Odisha government has readied in more than 7,000 temporary medical camps.
Keeping in mind the influx of people, the CM also asked the forest department to start labour intensive works to generate livelihood options for kendu leaf pluckers. He also asked the government officers to take steps to increase the testing facility to 15,000 per day from the current around 2,000 keeping in mind the return of stranded workers.
As lakhs of migrants prepare to return home, 200 of them from Surat have already started their journey back home in four privately arranged buses, the concern of their livelihoods cast a shadow on government efforts.
Rani Oram (23), a native of Orampara village under the Jujumura police station in Sambalpur district eagerly awaits the return of her husband, Prakash. He has been in Raichur in Karnataka to work in a rice mill. “Everything looked fine when he got to work there, four months ago. But the world’s now seems to be falling apart. The mill is closed. He is desperate to return. I also want him to be back home as early as possible,” said Rani, mother of two girls, one two year old and one just six months old. “However, when he is back he will have to worry about finding work to feed us,” she added.
The young couple, like lakhs of Odisha’s migrants, spends time apart to be able build a better future of their two daughters. “He earned around Rs 10,000 per month in Raichur, there is no way he can earn this much here,” said Rani.
Like Rani, families dependent on repatriated wages of principal bread earners are for now breathing a sigh of relief. Life after quarantine though remains a concern. “My son is stuck in Maharashtra. His mother is unwell. He is unable to send any money as his work has stopped. We are asking him to return at the first chance he gets. Next worry obviously will be to get back to work,” said Jagannath Behera (62), whose son Suresh works as a plumber in Mumbai.
The prolonged lockdown in the battle against coronavirus has made life of migrants stuck in other states miserable. The uncertainty of works and wage was compounded by their inability to return. For the around 60 brick kiln workers, including 25 women of Balangir district who are in Ranipet, Tamil Nadu a lockdown now of more than one and half months has exhausted all their savings, including what they could have used to travel back. “We came here in December. The brick making work has stopped for more than a month now. We had to use our savings to buy ration. The six months we spend here is a waste since we have no saving left,” Atal Sahoo (22), a native of Taljuri village under Loisingha block of Balangir, told TOI over phone. The backward region of KBK (Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput) has for decades been unable to stem distressed labour migration.
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