NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a PIL by rights activists Harsh Mandher and Anjali Bharadwaj seeking a direction to the Centre and state governments to immediately start paying minimum wages to all migrant workers, including self-employed ones like rickshaw pullers etc, unable to earn livelihood because of country-wide Covid-19 lockdown On behalf of Mandher and Bharadwaj, activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan sought urgent hearing on the PIL by mentioning it to Justice L Nageswara Rao , who agreed to direct the registry to list it for hearing next week.The petitioners claimed that sudden and ill-planned lockdown led to massive exodus of migrant workers and disrupted their ability to earn livelihood. It may be recalled that the SC bench of CJI S A Bobde and Justice Rao on Tuesday had accepted the Centre's contention that fake news about three month lockdown had caused the exodus of migrant workers. It had directed the Centre and state governments to ensure supply of food and shelter to all the migrant workers and poor as well as destitute."Direct the central and state governments to jointly and severally ensure payments of wages/ minimum wages to all the migrant workers within a week, whether employed by other establishments, contractors or self-employed, as they are unable to work and earn wages, during the period of the lockdown," they said.In another prayer, the petitioners sought a direction to the governments "to immediately activate National and State Advisory Committees of experts in the field of disaster management and public health and prepare national and state disaster management plans for dealing with the COVID epidemic, taking into account all relevant aspects, mitigation measure, their possible costs and consequences Disaster Management Act, 2005."The activists said, the lockdown order created a panic across the country and led to instantaneous loss of jobs and wages of millions of migrant workers employed in establishments across India or self-employed as street vendors, rickshaw pullers, domestic house helps, petty job workers, etc and their mass exodus to their home towns.They said the governments' directive to employers to pay wages to migrant workers and landlords not to vacate tented premises was unrealistic and would not serve the purpose as it small business establishments, which have shut down because of lockdown, would not be able to pay migrant workers in absentia."Besides majority of these migrant workers are self employed. The order ignores the harsh realities that workers have to persistently face in cities that is further compounded when a lockdown order deprives them of their job, daily wages and hence means of survival, thus violating their Article 21 rights. The petitioners submit that the lockdown has precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis especially among the class of migrant workers and it is the government, both Central and State, that have to take adequate measures in accordance with National and State plans drawn out under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, under the guidance of the advisory committees that these governments are mandated to constitute, to deal with this epidemic," they said.