The Ministry of Labour and Employment on Tuesday said it has set up 20 control rooms on pan-India basis to address wage-related grievances and to mitigate problems faced by migrant workers amid the lockdown period to contain the coronavirus outbreak crisis. The workers, especially migrant labourers, are the worst among due to the lockdown as a large number of them either faced pay cut or job loss.
These control rooms are set up in Patna, Raipur, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur, Jabalpur, Hyderabad, Dhanbad, Guwahati, Delhi, Cochin, Dehradun, Chennai, Chandigarh, Bhubaneshwar, Bangaluru, Asansol and Ajmer.
According to an International Labour Organisation assessment, 40 crore informal sector workers in India could be pushed deeper into poverty due to this lockdown.
The ministry said it would also work to mitigate the problems of migrant workers through coordination with various State Governments. These call centres can be accessed by the workers through phone numbers, WhatsApp and e-mails.
The control rooms are being managed by labour enforcement officers, assistant labour commissioners, regional labour commissioners, anddeputy chief labour commissioners of the respective regions. The functioning of all 20 call centres is being monitored and supervised by Chief Labour Commissioner (C) of Head Quarter on daily basis, the ministry said.