Safety of migrants policy challenge for govt
CRISIS PLANNING The preparation to safely transport migrants across the country will require data-driven decisions
On Labour Day, 38 days after a nationwide lockdown was announced, the first train ferrying migrants ran from Lingampally in Telangana to Hatia in Jharkhand. As the country trudges back to the new normal, a critical policy challenge will be to ensure the safety of the millions of migrants returning home. The preparation to safely transport migrants across the country will require data-driven decisions and an understanding of the arduous circumstances that await them and their families.
Here, we stitch together several different data sets to understand the characteristics of their home districts and some potential challenges that await them.
A majority of the return migration will likely originate from districts in red zones (hot spots). Therefore, returnees are at a higher risk of being carriers of infection. To approximate the districts migrants will potentially return to, we rely on the most recent data available from the National Sample Survey, 2007-08. We use data on both interstate seasonal migrants and those who moved for economic reasons. Since most of the return migration is expected to be geographically concentrated, we focus on the top 25% districts in the count r y most l i kely t o r e c e i ve migrants (Chart 1). These are the migrants’ home districts. These districts accounted for almost three-fourths of the migrantsending households in the country. Over 78% of these districts were in six states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. The characteristics of migrants’ home districts will reflect the socioeconomic profile of these states.
More than 60% of the home districts are in red and orange zones, where the Covid-mitigation measures are still mostly in place . But a significant containment challenge remains for unaffected and recovered districts (green zones), which make up 39% of the home districts.
As migrants return from affected districts to their home districts in the northern and eastern parts of the country, practising self-isolation will be critical to limit the spread of the virus. Selfisolation will require physical space for quarantine.
Isolating oneself may not be a trivial endeavour for returnee migrants: a typical household in the home districts has 5.9 members in contrast to 4.6 members in other districts.
Besides, more than three household members share a room, on average. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that they are also more likely to have a household member above the age of 65 years, and are therefore more susceptible to infection (Chart 2). In addition, inadequate access to private water supply, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure (WASH) could expose migrants, their families and communities to increased risk of infection and make self-isolation challenging. This problem is severe in migrants’ home districts.
Only 24% of households in these districts had access to a private water source in 2016 (Chart 3). While access to a private source in these districts is higher than other districts, many still lack this necessity.
As many as 58% of the households in these districts practised open defecation in 2016. While the toilet coverage has increased vastly under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, there is still a gap between access and usage.
If these challenges translate into a rapid spread of infection, the consequences for both illness and livelihood management will be more precarious given that migrants’ home districts are poorer and less urban. Their home districts also have a lower capacity to provide health care.
For instance, the average number of government district hospitals per 10,000 people in these districts is half that of the rest of the country.
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