NGO submits PIL asking Centre to use Indian Community Welfare Fund to rescue Indian workers stranded abroad

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 7

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre to use the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) to rescue poor Indian workers stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Launched in 2009, the Indian Community Welfare Fund is meant to help Indian nationals living abroad in the times of distress.

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The petitioner, NGO Pravasi Legal Cell, said fixing a fare for repatriation during these challenging times would further burden the migrant labourers, who lost their jobs and were in a vulnerable condition in the foreign land.

“Government must also consider the situation of migrant workers who have already lost their jobs and are living in miserable conditions in the Gulf countries, and make use of the funds such as the ICWF already available for bearing the cost of such needy Indian expatriates,” the NGO submitted.

Noting that majority of migrant labourers were working in the Gulf countries and were mostly low-skilled, the petitioner said most workers had been shifted to quarantine camps that were notoriously crowded.

The PIL sought to highlight the fact that hundreds of Indian workers were forced to live in cramped dormitories, often packed eight or 10 in a room, making it extremely difficult to curb the transmission of the virus.