SHILLONG, June 29: A year after thousands of migrant labourers returned to the state owing to the pandemic, the Meghalaya government is still trying to reach out to all the applicants to provide them with the financial assistance under the Chief Minister’s Relief Against Wage Loss (CRAWL) scheme.
The government had last year allocated nearly Rs 38 crore for immediate relief under the scheme and each applicant was provided Rs 2,100. About 2.3 lakh had applied for assistance.
Labour Department’s Principal Secretary, G.H.P. Raju told The Shillong Times that the department was able to verify 1.8 lakh bank accounts of the applicants who were migrant labourers.
The amount was transferred to around 1.4 lakh bank accounts and the remaining 38,000-39,000 accounts were rejected by the bank system due to wrong IFSC code, name and other details, he said on Tuesday.
He said the first instalment of Rs 700 was credited in some accounts but the bank system rejected the next two instalments of Rs 700 each.
In order to verify the migrant labourers who needed government assistance, the department constituted a committee to go into the entire matrix of cash transfer to their accounts. The exercise is still on.
Raju said the department last week requested the banks again to transfer the money to 18,000 accounts which were re-verified but the banks were able to remit to only 3,000 accounts. The secretary of the department heading the Committee is trying to physically verify the addresses of the migrant labourers who are yet to receive the grant and the entire process is expected to take some time.
Raju also asked the beneficiaries to come to the Labour Inspector offices and claim their benefits.
The government has to date transferred Rs 29 crore under the scheme and the remaining amount is with the department.
There are hardly any labourers who went outside to work ahead of this year’s pandemic and none returned after the second COVID wave struck.
The department is also in the process of identifying hawkers and daily wage earners in the unorganised sector so that necessary help can be provided to them.
