Case Study of the Day: Jharkhand- Migrants’ Database for Targeted Welfare Delivery

Jharkhand- Migrants’ Database for Targeted Welfare Delivery Background

The Jharkhand government has launched an initiative recently, to collate Migrants’ information and build a database of migrant workers from the state, in direction of effective Delivery of Welfare Schemes.

About the Initiative

• In a bid to address the lacunae in understanding the migrant population and their numbers, Jharkhand is undertaking the Jharkhand Migrant Survey (JMS), a key exercise to draft state-level policy.
• JMS is a part of the State’s Safe and Responsible Migration Initiative (SRMI) launched by the end of 2021 and the key objective is to prepare a database of migrant workers that can come in handy when the government is formulating policies.
• The aim is to map major sectors in which such workers are employed, identify the social security benefits that their families get and find out the various health hazards that they face.
• The evidence from the database is expected to be used to draft a state-level policy framework on the migration and welfare of migrant workers in Jharkhand in the upcoming fiscal year.
• Information on health, education, remittances and the uses they are put to, from the database can help policymakers devise targeted interventions which are increasingly seen as more effective methods of welfare delivery compared to subsidies meant for a larger population.
• Earlier, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab have conducted such surveys in the past.
• Hence, the need for other states to learn lessons from Jharkhand’s survey to frame a robust social security architecture.

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