Karnataka missed the Supreme Court deadline to register migrant workers for ration cards.
Karnataka: Muneswar Ram, a migrant worker has been moulding bricks in a factory in Bangalore for the past 15 years. All these years he has been buying groceries from a local grocer because he does not know about the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme that could help him get a national ration card.
Muneswar supports his extended family of eight with his daily wage of Rs. 700. He spends about Rs. 800 a week on grocery. “If I get the ration card then I can save money and reduce my financial burden,” he said.
Muneswar is among lakhs of migrant workers in the country who are waiting to register for the card so that they can reduce their expenses. However, the Karnataka government is running behind schedule to provide the cards; officials admit that they have missed the deadline set by the Supreme Court (SC).
“The Karnataka government has missed the deadline,” said Kavitha G R, system analyst, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department. She said that 3,62,501 migrant workers were registered for the ration card under e-Shram portal and they had verified 20,669 eligible registrants for ration cards. “We are still doing the field survey for the verification of migrant workers with the help of the Labour Department. We are in the process of finishing this verification and after that we will provide them the ration cards and ration,” Kavitha said.
The Supreme Court, passed an order on April 20, 2023 directing that states provide ration cards to migrant and unorganised workers registered under the e-Shram portal within three months. The SC directed all states and union territories to register all left out migrants under the National Food Security Act. The government has also put out a press release on this matter.
Before this order, the registrants could only access the Fair Price Shop (FPS) where they had registered. The One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme hopes to enable them to get ration from anywhere in the country. The registrants will get wheat, grains and grocery items at subsidised rates.
The state governments, however, have some challenges in implementing the order. Kavita said, the verification process was delayed because the phone number and address given by the workers might incorrect.
The labour department, too, has trouble tracking the workers. G S Bhat, consultant for the Labour Department, said, “We don’t have the data for the total number of migrant workers in our state. It’s very difficult to trace the migrant workers, as they shift from place to place. Migrant workers should voluntarily register themselves on the e-Shram portal to get all the benefits.”
He said that the department had been trying to spread awareness about the card. , ““Our department arranges camps at different construction workplaces, where the labour inspector informs migrant workers about the ONORC, and how they can register themselves in the e-Shram portal to avail the benefits of ration card,” Bhat said. He added that theytransfer the data of ration card registrants to the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department for processing.
However, quite a few workers said that they had not heard of the card. Santh Kumar Mahtwao, a migrant worker from Jharkhand, said, “For 15 years I have been buying rations at an open market price. I am earning Rs. 700 per day and I don’t know about ONORC.”
Bhat said that the scheme could be better implemented if contractors helped them to spread awareness. He said, “there is no strict law for the contractors who are not informing the migrant workers about various schemes and their benefits.”
According to an evaluation study of migration of labour to and from Karnataka by the Government of Karnataka in 2017, migrant workers are earning less than Rs. 6,000 per month and 68 percent migrant workers are from marginalised communities.
Krishnapriya V, a social worker, Aahwahan foundation, an NGO that deals with migrant workers said, “Migrant workers come to the city for the sake of employment opportunities but they face many challenges like the unfamiliarity with the language, lack of awareness and lack of proper documents and also middleman misguiding them. More than 40 percent of migrant workers do not have ration cards.”
As per the census 2011 data, the country has 4,14,22,917 inter-state migrant workers. However, other estimates put the number at eight crore. The census data also says that 32 lakh migrants came into Karnataka from other states, while 25 lakh migrants from Karnataka moved into other states.
The Ministry of Labour and Employment has mentioned that out of total 28.59 crore eShram registrants, about 20.63 crore eShram registrants are registered in National Food Security Act (NFSA) database of Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) and about 7.96 crore eShram registrants are not registered under NFSA database.
The one nation one card was launched in 2018 by the Department of Food and Supplies and Consumer Affairs. This scheme hopes to provide food security to migrant workers within India and aims to achieve the target set under Sustainable Development Growth (SDG 2), ending hunger in India by 2023. In this scheme, anyone can access food from any part of the country.
This scheme was implemented in 2019 but the need for it increased after the announcement of countrywide lockdown due to COVID. Under this One Nation One Card (ONORC) the government allowed every migrant and unorganised worker to access this benefit from any state so that they did not have to buy ration at open market rates.
