Daily wage labourers have urged the State government to provide immediate relief to them as they have been hit the most for more than one and half month due to the present Covid induced lockdown.
In a memorandum to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma recently, the Seng Nongbylla Sngi Umpling (SNSU) said that daily wage labourers are today under extreme stress of poverty and many of their families are also on the verge of hunger.
“As it is, we are a section of the society that works during weekdays and on weekends we get our wage and buy our basic necessities. However, due to lockdown we have not been able to labour and earn anything at all Therefore, considering the severity of the economic and psychological crisis that almost each of our family are in throughout the state of Meghalaya,” SNSU said.
The SNSU said that thousands of the daily wage labourers in the State including more than 300 from Umpling have taken new registration with the Labour Department, Government of Meghalaya last year under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (BOCWWB) and receipt for the same have been provided to them.
“So we appeal to you to kindly instruct the concerned department to immediately disburse the amount of Rupees 5000 each to all the newly registered daily wage construction labourers. We would also like to inform you that there are those who have registered under this board much earlier and have still not been given the financial aid. We also request you to kindly allow for a new drive for those who have not been able to register yet and in their case too, to kindly support all of us financially,” SNSU said.
It also said that many labourers who have applied for the Chief Minister Relief against Wage Loss (CRAWL) scheme last year have still not been given the money that was due for 2100 last year. While requesting the chief minister to look into the matter, SNSU also pleaded for sanction of the same scheme for this year’s loss of wage during the period of lockdown.
On free ration under various schemes like NSFA and others, SNSU informed that a large number of families especially those who are below poverty level and living from hand-to-mouth do not have any ration cards for availing any ration under various schemes of PDS.
“This may be due to many reasons such as the fact of being migrant labourers having to move out of villages to cities and therefore in the absence of EPIC and other documents we are denied PDS ration card and therefore are starving especially after being hit by the lockdown,” SNSU said.
It also urged the chief minister to expedite the process of acquiring ration cards, simplify the requirements and sensitise each local administration to act benevolently towards all families who are in dire need of ration due to the current crisis.
Further, SNSU said that children of daily wage labourers who were otherwise studying are in the last one year been practically left out of school since last year because either they could not afford to buy them smart phones to attend online learning or because they are not able to pay their fees as they had to basically first put food on the table.
“Some schools of course are also not equipped to handle the new emerging scenario to deal with our kids. So in simple terms, most of our children are actually left without education,” it said.
SNSU appealed to the chief minister to provide some kind of relief to all the children belonging to the daily wage labourers and other extremely poor families including relief from payments of school fees so that they can send their children back to schools.
It also urged the government to provide the children of daily wage labourers with mobile phones or other devices that will enable the children to regain their interest in learning.
