Safety of labourers: Labour Minister Mr T P Ramakrishnan calls propaganda baseless

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Labour Minister Mr. T P Ramakrishnan has said that there could be political motives behind the ongoing "baseless" campaign that Kerala was unsafe for migrant workers, especially since the state government had initiated a host of welfare measures for migrants, the latest being the ‘Aawaz’ medical and life insurance policy being rolled out. “The LDF government has been initiating various noticeable initiatives for the welfare of migrant workers. Hence there could be political motives to defame the state government by spreading such fake messages,” Mr. Ramakrishnan told reporters here on Tuesday.

The Minister also said that the state government would explore all efforts to counter this “false propaganda” and since a large number of migrants were from Bengal, the help of the government there could be also used if required. The minister also stressed the need for trade union interventions among migrants in order to resist such campaigns. Mr. Ramakrishnan said that the Aawaz insurance scheme for migrants would offer medical coverage of Rs. 15,000 and death coverage of Rs. 2 lakh. No premium would be collected from the migrants.

The formal launch of registration to the scheme would begin on November 1 and the migrants would get the benefits of the scheme from January. Apart from personal information, fingerprints of the migrants would also be collected and a smart card would be issued to the migrants. The card would not be made mandatory, he said.