Shillong , Oct 23: KHADC chief Winston Tony Lyngdoh on Thursday alleged the state government of issuing labour licenses to migrant workers, who have not yet entered Meghalaya.
Replying to a motion on the issuance of the Non-Tribal Employee Clearance Certificate (NTECC), Lyngdoh said, “I have also seen that migrant workers who are yet to work in Meghalaya are already issued labour licenses by the state government. This is a matter of concern. How is it possible for a person who is from outside the state to get a labour license when he is yet to come to Meghalaya?”
The NTECC is being issued as per the United Khasi-Jaintia Trading by Non-Tribal Regulation, 1954.
The council has been issuing NTECC since 2020, after discussions and a decision by the Executive Committee (EC) on June 4, 2020.
“Therefore, our decision to issue the NTECC is after we see the physical presence of the said non-tribal employee. We issue a slip to give time to the non-tribal labour to produce necessary documents, including EPIC, Aadhaar, residential certificate, passbook account, etc. within 15 days. This shows that the KHADC can control the coming of migrant workers in Meghalaya,” Lyngdoh stated.
“As I mentioned, a migrant worker can easily get a labour license from the state government even though he is yet to work in the state. The KHADC has decided to use this proviso of the regulation by conducting checks. We have the power to evict illegal migrant workers, but we don’t have the power to push them back or deport them. Our power is to evict from any site if they do not have proper documents,” he said while adding “The implementation of NTECC is ongoing, and we have outsourced the work to identify non-tribal employees in order to issue the necessary certificate.”
“The KHADC is empowered through the second proviso sub-section two of section three to issue NTECC. Although the Meghalaya Migration Act has taken away our power to issue labour clearance certificates, we understand that there is a clash with this Act, but we also understand that these non-tribal workers are working under the Sixth Schedule areas, so the council still has the power to bring them under the proviso,” Lyngdoh further stated.
