Bhubaneswar: The state government has constituted a high-level task force to brainstorm and recommendholistic measures to address the problem of distress migration in Odisha.

The task force will be headed by Deputy Chief Minister and Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment Minister KV Singh Deo. Deputy Chief Minister and Women and Child Development Minister Pravati Parida, Panchayatiraj and Drinking Water Minister Rabi Narayan Naik, a few other Ministers, Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja, Development Commissioner Anu Garg and Secretaries of various departments are the members of the task force.  

 The high-level task force will discuss in detail the problems of migrant workers and decide the course of action to solve the problems. It will also recommend steps to be taken up by various government agencies to check distress migration and also to mitigate the sufferings of the migrant labourers of Odisha.

The Secretariat of the task force shall be located in Panchayati Raj &Drinking Water Department. The task force shall meet at least once in six months to review the progress. The task force may co-opt a few expert members of national/ international repute working in this field, academicians, development practitioners and UN agency representatives among others.

The task force will examine the nature of migration region-wise and recommend specific interventions needed. It will also deliberate upon the regional variation, seasonality as well as the magnitude of the migration and recommend strategies to reduce distress migration and will deliberate upon the existing activities/ interventions being made by different departments to reduce distress migration and the effectiveness of the same by studying the existing legal/policy provisions to tackle the problem.

To deal with the complex nature of the problem, the task force has been assigned to recommend specific measures required to be taken by various departments in terms of creating infrastructure as well as opportunities for livelihood within the state through skilling, credit availability and linking the family with anti-poverty programmes .

It will also recommend additional targeted interventions/schemes required to be taken up by the state government and will suggest the institutional framework required to be put in place at the state, district, block level to tackle the issue in holistic and sustainable manner.

 In order to address the issues effectively, the task force will deliberate upon the need to develop partnerships with expert agencies, civil society, and technical organisations for improving the effectiveness of the interventions proposed.

Apart from these, the task force will discuss and recommend the necessary coordination with the Centre and other states to ensure availability of resources for all these measures and to resolve the problems of migrant workers in a comprehensive manner.