‘Grim reality’: give migrants cooked food at their work site, directs HC to Delhi govt

The bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said daily wage labourers “are faced with a grim reality once again”.

Pulling up the Union and Delhi governments for “not learning from previous mistakes”, the Delhi high court on Monday directed the state government to provide cooked food to Delhi’s migrants at their worksites during the week-long lockdown in the Capital, in place till April 26.

Migrant workers arrive at a bus station to board buses to return to their villages after Delhi government ordered a six-day lockdown. (Reuters)

The bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said daily wage labourers “are faced with a grim reality once again”.

“We would like that lessons be taken from the past lockdown… Both the state and central governments had miserably failed,” the bench said.

The bench also came down heavily on the Delhi government for not utilising ₹3,000 crore from the funds available for the workers under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Act.

It said that hundreds of thousands of workers, whose membership of the Delhi construction board lapsed, were not given ex gratia payments, and said if the government is short of funds to give the workers food, it can take money from the funds available under the workers act.

“With the imposition of a curfew till April 26, the daily wage earners, who live hand to mouth and earn on a daily basis are faced with a grim reality.”

Senior advocate Rahul Mehra appeared for the state government.

“On the last occasion, civil society had come forward to provide food and other necessities to a large section of such needy people. Though Mehra says steps were taken, we may say with our full experience we found that the state failed to utilise thousands of crores in its accounts under the workers act. Lakhs of building workers, whose membership has lapsed due to non-renewal, were not given ex gratia”.

The court also directed the state to engage the contractor engaged in providing midday meals in schools.

Mehra said money would not be a factor and they would “beg, borrow and steal” to provide food.