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RANCHI: The state migrant control room, which was initially conceptualised and set up during the nationwide migrant labourer crisis owing to Covid-19-induced lockdown, has so far managed to successfully rescue around 8 lakh workers from across the globe in the last three years as it turned three on Monday.Even though the Covid-related migrant crisis largely ended after the first two waves, the Jharkhand government's decision to keep the control room functional as part of its safe and responsible migration initiative taking into account the trafficking menace in Jharkhand, has now emerged as the one-stop centre for early bail out of migrant workers in distress irrespective of the geographical locations.The centre is located at Nepal House under the aegis of the state labour department. According to figures, since its inception, it has till date received over 10 lakh distress calls from over 15 lakh people of which more than eight lakh people were successfully reunited/brought back home. Of this, over 1,500 people were brought from offshore countries. The centre also played a crucial role in coordination and rescue of workers during Uttarakhand's Chamoli glacier disaster in 2021 and safe return of students of this state, who were stranded in Ukraine last year after the war broke with Russia.An official of the state migrant control room said, "Initially, we began this centre with 10 volunteers as Covid-response centre to identify and register stranded migrant workers. Today, about 16 people are manning it full time in Ranchi and nine are in three high priority districts."The entire operations and management of the control room is being managed by Partnering Hope Into Action (PHIA) Foundation, which had been working on migration and human trafficking issues in Jharkhand.Johnson Topno, regional head of this programme, said, "Considering the success during Covid-19, the government decided to extend it for its safe migration intervention. In last three years, we achieved some success, but lots need to be done in making safe migration through inter-state government collaborations and effective coordination."On the roles the control room played during the Covid-19, another official said, "Besides registering grievances, the control room played a key role in counselling, and grievance redressal mechanisms to address a plethora of problems. This apart, the control room also help the government in skill mapping of the returning migrants and created information on the sectors and experiences they possess. This helped the government for the first time to get a proper data on the nature and magnitude of the situation of migration in the state." In December 2021, the state government formally rolled out safe and Rresponsible migration Initiative (SRMI) to strengthen crisis management through this control room and build a systemic policy framework to ensure safety, dignity and social security benefits for workers migrating out of the state."Under SRMI, we have so far established safe and responsible migration Ccentres at source and destination states. At present, the SRMCs are set up in three high-out burden districts namely Gumla, West Singhbhum and Dumka in Jharkhand and two SRMCs in selected destination states namely Kerela and Leh are made operationalised. The role of SRMCs is to create awareness among migrant workers, and register them before migration to ensure that the government can keep tabs on their well-being and take corrective steps in need of distress," said Topno.Citing challenges, he said that there is still a long way to go to achieve safe migration. "Enabling systematic registration of migrant workers, monitoring and mapping of evidence on intra-state and inter-state migration through rigorous use of data is still a challenge. This apart, there is a need to create a robust data-driven decision-making policy framework to reduce vulnerabilities and exploitation of migrant workers from Jharkhand for which the state government is already working on plans," he added.

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8L migrant workers rescued in 3 years - Times of India