'Kerala economy struggling, cannot pay for return of migrant workers': State govt tells SC

Ahead of the hearing before the Supreme Court on Friday on the issue concerning the plight of stranded migrants across the country, the government of Kerala filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court giving details of the steps being taken by them to deal with the crisis at hand. The government told the Supreme Court that no migrant worker from Kerala was being charged any cost or fee to travel by rail or road.

“Kerala has been handling the issues in connection with guest workers till now well. There is no case of loss of life or any other untoward incidents as are being reported in many other States. The Kerala model of migrant management has been come for praise from different quarters,” the state told the Supreme Court.

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Setbacks to Kerala's economy

It went on to say, however, that Kerala’s economy had faced a number of setbacks over the last three years. The state was hit by cyclone “Okhi” in 2017 and faced floods in 2018 and 2019. Amidst this, due to the economic crisis in Gulf countries (which are considered as the backbone of Kerala’s economy), the people ousted from there returned back to Kerala. In addition to all this, COVID and the lockdown have “devastated the economy of the State and the situation is absolutely an impasse”, the Government stated.

In the submission made before the court, the Kerala Government also informed the Supreme Court that, at a point like this, the states have not reached any agreement on sharing of costs arising out of the travel being arranged for stranded migrant labourers. The government says, that the Supreme Court had earlier decided that the costs for the migrant labourers to be sent back to their home states will be borne by the originating state and the receiving state, “but no such internal arrangements have been made between the respective States”.

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The state is doing its utmost to manage the issue of the migrant labourers, the Kerala government said, even though the state has availed loans at a high rate for wriggling out of this tumultuous situation. “Pooling of costs will absolutely affect the pecuniary balance,” Kerala said. “The economic status of each State would definitely differ. Some states may have the money to deal with the situation, but some other states will struggle for money”, Kerala said.

In light of these submissions, the Kerala government asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier order asking the states to share the cost for travel of the migrants or direct the Union Government to take care of the complete cost of the return of migrant labourers.

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