Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has formed a high-level task force to tackle the issue of distress migration in the state.
The task force will be led by Deputy Chief Minister and Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister KV Singh Deo while its key members will be the Deputy Chief Minister, Women and Child Development, Mission Shakti, Tourism, Minister Panchayatiraj and Drinking Water, other Ministers of the State, Chief Secretary, Development Commissioner and Secretaries of various departments.
The primary objective of this task force is to delve into the challenges faced by migrant workers, identify solutions to prevent distress migration and propose comprehensive measures to alleviate their suffering.
According to the official release, this high-level task force will discuss in detail the problems of migrant workers and prevent distress migrations and decide the course of action to solve the problems. It will also recommend steps to be taken up by various government agencies to check distress migration and also to mitigate the sufferings of the migrant labourers of Odisha.
The Secretariat of the task force shall be located in Panchayati Raj &Drinking Water Department. The task force shall meet at least once in six months to review the progress. The task force may co-opt a few expert members of national/ international repute working in this field. It may also co-opt academicians, development practitioners and UN agency representatives. Such members shall be intimated to attend the meetings on a need basis.
The task force will examine the nature of migration region-wise and recommend specific interventions needed. It will also deliberate upon the regional variation, seasonality as well as the magnitude of the migration and recommend strategies to reduce distress migration and will deliberate upon the existing activities/ interventions being made by different departments to reduce distress migration and the effectiveness of the same by studying the existing legal/policy provisions to tackle the problem.
To deal with the complex nature of the problem the Task Force has been assigned to recommend specific measures required to be taken by various departments in terms of creating infrastructure as well as opportunities for livelihood within the state through skilling, credit availability and linking the family with anti-poverty programmes. It will also recommend additional targeted interventions/schemes required to be taken up by the state government and will suggest the institutional framework required to be put in place at the state, district, and block levels to tackle the issue holistically and sustainably.
In order to address the issues effectively the task force will deliberate upon the need to develop partnerships with expert agencies, civil society, and technical organizations for improving the effectiveness of the interventions proposed.
Apart from these, the task force will discuss and recommend the necessary coordination with the Government of India and various state governments to ensure the availability of resources for all these measures and to resolve the problems of migrant workers in a comprehensive manner.
