The Odisha government has constituted a taskforce to find ways and means to eradicate distress migration of workforces from the State in the wake of lack of viable local employment opportunities.

The formation of the taskforce is intended at arresting the exodus of skilled and unskilled people to other States, said an official on Monday.

With lack of employment opportunities and absence of irrigation network for agrarian activities, people from backward belts of the State migrate to neighbouring states in search of bread and butter. In the process, these defenceless people are ensnared in bondage labour system and fall prey to exploitative practices of tyrannical employers.

Every year, around one thousand cases of torture and exploitation of migrant Odia labourers are being reported. While the government puts the distress migration figure at 1.31 lakh, the actual figure could go up by ten-fold, according to activists.

A high-level task force has been constituted by the state government to brainstorm and recommend holistic measures to address the problem of distress migrations in the state. The taskforce will be headed by KV Singh Deo, Deputy Chief Minister, who is also the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Energy.

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 are the members, said an official on Monday.

The taskforce 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 Taskforce will operate at the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Department. The taskforce shall meet at least once in six months to review the progress. It may co-opt a few expert members of national and international repute working in this field.

It may also co-opt academicians, development practitioners, UN agency representatives, etc. Such members shall be intimated to attend the meetings on a need basis.

The taskforce 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 and interventions being made by different departments to reduce distress migration and the effectiveness of the same by studying the existing legal and policy provisions to tackle the problem.

To deal with the complex nature of the problem, it 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, linking the family with anti-poverty programs, etc.

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 State, District, Block level to tackle the issue in a holistic and sustainable manner.

In order to address the issues effectively the taskforce will deliberate upon the need to develop partnerships with expert agencies, Civil Society, and Technical organizations for improving the effectiveness of the interventions.

Apart from these, the task force will discuss and recommend the necessary coordination with the Government of India and various state governments to ensure availability of resources for all these measures and to resolve the problems of migrant workers in a comprehensive manner, concluded the official.