Labour Ministry Planning A Dedicated COVID-19 Vaccination Drive For Workers Across The Industrial Belts

In a positive development, the Union Labour Ministry is planning to run a vaccination programme targeting the workers across the industrial belts of the country, especially those in textile and MSME sectors, reports Mint.

It should be noted that while the bigger firms are vaccinating their employees on their own, several small firms and enterprises in industrial zones are said to be lagging. Thus, a dedicated inoculation drive will help small firms and local unions speed up the vaccination of formal and informal workers.

Union Labour Minister Bhupendra Yadav and other top officials in the Ministry are said to have internally discussed the matter and plan to bring onboard labour unions. If and when things materialise, the initiative will be driven as a collective effort by the officials from Labour and Health ministries, industries and worker unions.

As per the official data, there are 600-plus small and medium enterprise clusters, over 7,000 micro-enterprise clusters, and over 2,500 rural industry clusters operating in India, besides 70 textile clusters.