On March 12, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee launched a separate well being card for migrant employees as a variant of the Swasthya Sathi scheme, which covers annual medical bills of as much as ₹5 lakh per household.

The card was launched months after the state authorities began getting ready its first database on migrant employees in September with the launch of the seventh section of the Duare Sarkar (authorities on the doorstep) programme launched in 2020 for the supply of companies and welfare schemes at panchayat and municipal ranges.

Registration of migrant employees was among the many key objectives of the seventh section of Duare Sarkar. “In 2020, when the [Covid-19] lockdown left people stranded across the nation, a rough estimate indicated that around 1.1 million migrant workers were from Bengal. Murshidabad district accounted for the highest migration among the state’s 23 districts,” a authorities official mentioned.

A second official mentioned for the usual well being card utilized in Bengal, the federal government pays the premium and hospitals cost the insurance coverage corporations. “In the case of migrant workers, payments will be sent directly to hospitals through third parties.”

According to the 2011 census, Bengal was the fourth greatest supply of migrant employees within the nation after Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. Around 580,000 folks migrated from Bengal between 2001 and 2011.

As many as 103 folks from Bengal, largely migrant employees, have been among the many 293 passengers killed when three trains collided in Odisha’s Balasore on June 2 final 12 months. On August 23, a bridge collapsed in Mizoram, killing 23 development employees from Bengal’s Malda. Three migrant employees from Murshidabad died of electrocution whereas working at an under-construction high-rise constructing at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh on August 25.

Opposition events in Bengal have used the outflux of migrant employees as a serious situation in opposition to the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), calling migration an indicator of its failure to generate employment.

The situation has been raised extra aggressively in areas with giant Muslim populations apparently as a result of the Muslims have been key TMC supporters. The greatest chunk of migrants come from Muslim-majority areas.

Muslims accounted for Bengal’s 27.01% inhabitants, in accordance with the 2011 census. They affect ballot ends in 120 of 294 meeting seats. Murshidabad district has Bengal’s highest Muslim inhabitants (66.28%), adopted by Malda (51.27%), North Dinajpur (49.92%), South 24 Parganas (35.57%) and Birbhum (37.06%).

A Bengal authorities survey confirmed a considerable variety of migrant employees have been additionally from districts with excessive Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) populations. Over 10,000 migrant employees have been registered in 12 days in September in Purulia, which has a mixed ST and SC inhabitants of 38%.

Bengal BJP chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya mentioned the precise variety of migrant employees was a minimum of six million way over what the federal government claims. He known as the launch of well being card an election gimmick. “The state government cannot make this scheme work because of its current financial condition.”

He mentioned as an alternative of offering well being playing cards, the federal government ought to discover a technique to generate native employment alternatives in order that these folks don’t have to migrate.