Finally, there’s a central database for migrant workers

New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) At a time when the plight of the migrants in India has become international headlines, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has come forward and developed a National Migrant Info System (NIMS) — a central online repository to facilitate their seamless movement across states amid the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

Meanwhile, the Union Home Ministry has also asked the states to upload data on the NIMS dashboard for better coordination, movement monitoring and contact tracing. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla wrote to all the chief secretaries in this regard on Saturday.

“The portal will maintain a central repository and help the sending as well as receiving state/district to ask for and give their acceptance in an online format seamlessly. This system will help in speedy communication between states without creating additional work at the level of the field officers,” Bhalla wrote.

Some of the key features of this system will be a unique ID generated for each migrant, which can be used for all transactions and help any state can visualise how many people are going out from where and how many are reaching their destination states. The mobile numbers can also be used for contact tracing and movement monitoring.

While so far 3.5 lakh migrants have been transported in 350 Shramik Special trains, there are many more who need to be moved back home.

The announcement came on a day when 25 migrant workers were killed and several injured after a truck they were travelling in rammed into a lorry in Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya, bringing the focus back to the plight the migrant workers.

–IANS

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