The Chief Labour Commissioner’s office has counted over 26 lakh migrant workers stranded across the country, of which 10% are in relief camps or shelter homes, while 43% are in situ at workplaces and 46% are in other clusters.
This is an extreme underestimation, going by the other assessments made by Central and State governments, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s estimate of 8 crore stranded migrants used to determine extra ration provisions in the Atmanirbhar package. On April 8, even as the first wave of workers was leaving the cities due to the lockdown, CLC (Central) Rajan Verma wrote to his regional heads, telling them that “comprehensive data” on migrant workers was “urgently required within three days”.
Full coverage | Lockdown displaces lakhs of migrants
They were asked to collect district-wise information on relief camps and details of employers whose labour was in situ at the workplace, as well as other localities where migrants were clustered.
However, when RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak requested this information, the CLC’s