Registration, verification of migrant workers made must in Shimla

Amid the ongoing tensions over the issue of alleged influx of migrant workers from outside the state, the district administration of Shimla has made registration and verification of migrant workers in the unorganised sector mandatory.

District magistrate Anupam Kashyap has issued orders as an emergency measure. According to these orders, no employer, contractor, or trader in Shimla district may engage any migrant labourer in small non-formal jobs, services, or contract labor until the migrant labourers report to the station house officer (SHO) at the relevant police station and submit their details along with a passport-sized photograph.

This order takes effect immediately and will remain in force for the next two months.

A statement from the district administration stated that under these orders, no individual visiting Shimla district shall engage in any form of self-employment, non-formal trade, or search for employment without notifying the police station in charge. Violators and their employers will face penalties under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023.

The development comes in the backdrop of several Hindu groups and trader outfits demanding the identification and verification of migrants coming to the state. A committee had been constituted by assembly speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania to frame a policy on street vendors. The protests, which initially started in Shimla over an unauthorised construction in a mosque, spread to other parts of the state.