The Problem With SC’s Recent Orders in the Migrant Workers Case -Akhileshwari Reddy

-TheWire.in

The tragedy of the migrant workers in India will be witnessed repeatedly unless the Supreme Court becomes an ‘activist’ court once again. 

The most recent order of the Supreme Court of India in the case of Bhandua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India has been cause for much adulation and has restored the faith of some in India’s judiciary. 

While the apex court has made all the right noises in terms of the rights-based approach it has adopted and its recognition of the duty of the government to implement schemes to alleviate the suffering of migrant workers, whether the orders of the court will amount to much is debatable. The orders are essentially unimplementable. 

The most important directions of the court, for this article, are:

- Directions to the states to implement the One Nation One Ration scheme (ONOR) by July 31, 2021.
- Directions to the Centre and states to operationalise the National Database for Unorganised Workers (NDUW) and to register all unorganised workers in it by July 31, 2021. 

Implementation of the ONOR scheme 

While with old ration cards, holders of a card could only withdraw rations from the Fair Price Shop (FPS) where they resided, the ONOR scheme now makes it possible for ration card holders to withdraw their rations from across the country.

This in essence means that migrant workers, who continuously move from place to place in search of work, will now be able to withdraw their rations in their destination states, essentially ensuring portability of benefits. 

There is no doubt that this is the need of the hour. It is a measure that has been advocated for by various authorities including the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs, and Public Distribution. However, the implementation of ONOR within the given time frame is near impossible. This is because implementation is dependent on two crucial steps: 

- Availability of functioning electronic Point of Sale machines (e-POS) at every single FPS across the country, and 
- Seeding of all ration cards with Aadhaar.

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