44.5% of Bihar’s cash transfers to over 10 lakh workers are in Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra

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“Money has been transferred to 10,11,473 workers who are stranded outside Bihar. The geofencing technology ensures that the link for registration can be accessed by only those workers who are outside Bihar. They are also required to upload their photo and Aadhaar details, after which the money is transferred to their bank accounts which should be within Bihar,” Modi told The Indian Express.

As of April 17, cash transfers of Rs 1,000 each have been made to 1.99 lakh workers in Delhi, 1.39 lakh workers in Haryana, 1.12 lakh workers in Maharashtra, 93,219 workers in Gujarat, 81,967 workers in Uttar Pradesh, 58,417 workers in Punjab and 48,329 workers in Karnataka.

Read| Bihar tests, finds migrants haven’t added to state tally of positive cases

After the nationwide lockdown, restricting inter-state travel of migrant workers, Bihar government had taken the decision to provide monetary assistance in the form of cash transfers to stranded workers belonging to the state.

Along with this, the Bihar government is also providing food to workers at several locations, including ten centres in Delhi.

Modi also said that after the steps by the RBI, states are expecting more relief measures and incentives from the central government.

“Some of the amounts in funds such as sinking fund, construction workers welfare fund, mineral development fund are lying unutilised. Changes in regulations could help in utilisation of such funds right now,” he said.

Though there’s no official data on migrant workers in the country, the Economic Survey for 2016-17 had stated Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as the states with high net out-migration, estimating the total size of the migrant workforce in the country at roughly over 10 crore or 20 per cent of the workforce of about 50 crore in 2016.

The sinking fund was set up in 1999-2000. Based on the recommendations of the Twelfth Finance Commission, the guidelines of the scheme were revised with effect from January 2010.

Under these revised guidelines,the state government is required to make annual contributions to the Fund at 0.5 percent of the outstanding liabilities at the end of the previous financial year. State Governments can avail of Special Drawing Facility (SDF) from the Reserve Bank of India against the collateral of the funds in the consolidated sinking fund.

The CSF, which is managed by the RBI, had a balance of over Rs 1.28 lakh crore as on January 31, 2020, of which Bihar’s corpus is Rs 7,570 crore.