Centre set to launch digitized platform to benefit migrant workers

The Union government is likely to launch by next week a digitized platform for migrant workers that will enable authorities to direct state-run benefits to them and intervene during crises. The Supreme Court had, earlier, set July 31 2021 as the deadline to so do.

In the summer of 2020, tens of thousands of low-paid workers fled major cities, such as Mumbai and Chennai, under traumatic conditions without much food or money following a stringent national lockdown during the first wave of coronavirus infections. These workers walked down highways to reach their native villages, exhausted.

The government wasn’t able to respond with any immediate help because there was no database of who these people were.