Tamil Nadu provided free dry ration to the highest number of registered sex workers as COVID-19 relief in 2020, while almost 80% of their counterparts in Gujarat were not willing to avail of freebies under a State Government scheme, a Supreme Court report said.
According to the report collated by amicus curiae Pijush Kanti Roy, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh provided information about men sex workers while Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh recorded a total of 3,715 transgender sex workers.
The Supreme Court had through an order on November 29, 2020, directed all the States and Union Territories (UTs) to comply with an earlier order to provide dry ration to the sex workers without insisting on ration cards or identity proofs. The court also directed the States and UTs to file their respective status report.
The amicus curiae summarised the affidavits filed by 22 States and UTs, which together accounted for more than 2,89,400 sex workers registered with the National AIDS Control Organisation.
According to the report Tamil Nadu has the most sex workers – 85,504 – out of whom 73,381 possess ration cards. The affidavit by the State Government said all of them were provided with dry ration through fair price shops, Amma mini cooperative markets, cooperative supermarkets and mobile farm-fresh consumer outlets.
Madhya Pradesh recorded 40,312 sex workers, Uttar Pradesh 28,076, Maharashtra 25,594, Gujarat 24,579 and Kerala more than 18,000.
The affidavit filed by the Gujarat Government said 15,408 sex workers who did not possess ration cards were being provided with free dry ration under the Annam Brahma scheme. But 12,291 of them were unwilling to avail the benefits of this scheme.
The Madhya Pradesh Government said it had dedicated the ‘Ration-Friendly Portal’ for distributing free dry ration to the 40,312 sex workers but only 3,657 of them availed of the benefits till December 7 this year.
The Maharashtra Government said it provided free ration to 6,731 dependent children besides 25,594 sex workers. Additionally, the State has decided to provide ₹5,000 to each woman sex worker and ₹2,500 to each dependent school-going child.
Uttar Pradesh and Tripura were the only States that informed the Supreme Court about men sex workers. Uttar Pradesh also recorded transgender sex workers along with Meghalaya.
The report of the amicus curiae said 7,237 of the 28,076 registered sex workers in Uttar Pradesh were men while 3,708 were women. While 25,322 sex workers were given dry rations, the remaining 1,752 had either rejected the free ration kits or had “died, migrated or not found”.
In Tripura, a total of 19,015 kg of dry ration was distributed to high-risk groups comprising 3,552 women and 281 men sex workers. Of the “more than 200” sex workers holding ration cards in Meghalaya, the free ration was provided to seven transgenders.
Among the northeastern States, Assam had to most sex workers at 11,530. The Government’s affidavit said ₹32.87 lakh had been sanctioned for the distribution of dry rations by the administrative heads of 19 districts.
The Andaman and Nicobar administration said there was no scope for implementing the Supreme Court’s order as the UT has not identified any sex workers.
