An effort by the Tamil Nadu government to register details of migrant workers employed in the State on its portal, is yet to gain momentum in Coimbatore district, mainly because of low awareness among employers and workers both.
With the COVID -19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown that came into force in 2020, a large number of migrant workers left their jobs in the district to return to their home States. An initiative was taken then to register the workers so that they would be able to avail of the benefits given by the government then.
Two years later with COVID-19 cases low, the workers have returned to the district and thousands of them are working at various industries, construction sites, hotels and retail outlets here.
S.M. Kamalhasan, president of the Coimbatore goldsmith association, said there was no data even now, on the number of migrant workers in the jewellery sector in Coimbatore. Though an effort was made a couple of years ago to collect the details, it has not progressed.
According to C. Sivakumar, president, Coimbatore Tirupur Districts Micro and Cottage Entrepreneurs Association, when the lockdown first came in, the data of migrant workers working in the district was used to distribute groceries to the workers. Recently, the panchayat presidents and the police in some of the rural areas such as Annur and Chinniyampalayam collected details of the workers from the micro units. The government should use the data collected online to create a welfare board or for any other welfare scheme so that the workers get the benefits they are entitled to, he said. This will encourage more industries and workers to register on it, he added.
Official sources said the portal (labour.tn.gov.in\ism) has about 77,000 workers in the district registered on it. Of these, about 30,000 are active. Migrant workers are employed in both the organised and the unorganised sectors in the district. While awareness is relatively high in the organised sector about the registration, it is difficult to register those in the unorganised sector.
Tiruppur and Coimbatore districts are among those in the State with the largest number of workers registered online. The Labour Department has been asking establishments, caterers, etc to register the migrant workers employed with them. Factories and all establishments and employers of migrant workers should take efforts to register the workers on the site, the sources said.
