The Ministry of Home Affairs has launched the National Migrant Information System (NMIS) in order to track the movement of migrant labourers amid the coronavirus lockdown. The portal is based on a central repository on migrant workers to ease their movements towards their native places. The NMIS is based on the existing National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)’s GIS portal.
MHA has directed all the states to upload data on the NMIS dashboard for better coordination, monitoring the movement of migrants from one state to another, and contact tracing.
Features of NMIS
States can upload batch files of individual migrants with their data such as name, age, mobile no, originating & destination, date of travel – data which has already been collected by states.
The key data pertaining to the persons migrating has been standardized for uploading such as name, age, mobile number, originating and destination district, date of travel, etc., which states are already collecting.
States will be able to visualize how many people are going out from where and how many are reaching destination states.
The mobile numbers of people can be used for contact tracing and movement monitoring during COVID-19.
A unique ID is generated for each migrant, which can be used for all transactions
GOI nodal minitries can also monitor the movement of migrants through this portal.
Shramik special trains
The Indian Railways operated ‘Shramik special trains’ to facilitate the migrant labourers get back to their natives. Earlier on Thursday, the Central government allowed the State and union territories to ferry passengers buses to the migrant workers reaching the railway stations. The centre is claiming the 85 per cent cost of tickets while 15 per cent will be afforded by the state government.
As per reports, the India railways have operated 1704 Shramik special trains which ferried 14 lakh workers.
