UP prepares list, to extend govt benefits to 65 million migrant labour

The Uttar Pradesh government as well as the ruling BJP is seeking to woo migrants working in other states in the run-up to the assembly election next year.

While the state government is speeding up work on welfare schemes for migrants, BJP leaders in other states are reaching out to the migrants from UP, especially daily wage labourers, so that they influence their families back home and also vote in their native state in the polls.

The UP government has set a deadline of December to register about 65 million workers in the unorganised sector to create a database and provide them benefits of social security schemes that were announced in the budget this year, said a senior government official.


The measures include death and disability insurance on the lines of PM Suraksha Bima Yojana, as well as health insurance called the CM Jan Arogya Scheme. A total of Rs 112 crore had been set aside for this. Due to the national portability of the scheme, a migrant worker working in a state outside of UP will also be able to avail of the benefits in what will be a major welfare measure for the category. The CM Migrant Labour Entrepreneurship Development Scheme, also announced in the budget, is also slated to be taken up by the cabinet shortly, said the official.

Separately, BJP leaders and supporters in states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat, which receive the highest number of migrants from UP, will soon start working on publicising the works of the Yogi Adityanath government among migrants, particularly those belonging to the labour class.

"Twenty out of 28 districts in eastern UP are such that most houses have a member working in Maharashtra," Kripa Shankar Singh, vice president of BJP in Maharashtra, who hails from UP's Jaunpur, told ET.