Poor Safety Net
capacity to absorb even a fourth of the returning migrants. Currently, most states are relying on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to support the migrants. The Union government has allocated an additional Rs 40,000 crore to the existing Rs 61,500 crore budget for the scheme for 2020-21. All states have started issuing job cards to those returning workers who don’t have one. Data on MGNREGA employment suggests that for the moment, workers are opting for employment under the scheme, even though the wages are much lower than what they would have earned in cities. This, too, will push them back to cities, argue experts.
The Covid crisis has exposed the systemic indifference of governments—central and state—toward migrants. Come elections, emotional political narratives will be built around them, but migrants have rarely been the driving force of any government policy. “Migrants have almost no political voice as they are not allowed to vote at destination and typically miss out on elections back at home. They are not stakeholders in making decisions that affect them,” says IMN’s Aggarwal. “Our welfare system is designed predominantly for the poor rural and static households, whereas in the past 20 years, the proportion of urban poor, dominated by migrant workers, has exploded.” Way back in 2009, the Unorganised Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill was enacted to give workers social security and job protection, and draw up a database of unorganised workers. Tellingly, this has yet to be done.
To safeguard the interests of migrant workers, the Interstate Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, provides for payment of minimum wages, journey allowance, displacement allowance, residential accommodation, medical facilities, and protective clothing. The current crisis has exposed how poorly these provisions are enforced, a task entrusted to the Central Industrial Relations Machinery. Between 2016 and 2019, 23,908 inspections by authorities found 267,040 irregularities, but there were only 5,839, or 2.1 per cent, convictions.
Harsh norms and giving discretionary powers to bureaucracy are responsible for poor compliance with the law, say experts. These laws must be rationalised to incentivise employers and contractors. Under the proposed social security code of the newly simplified central labour laws, the Union government now plans to register the migrant workers so that they can access social security and health benefits under the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation. In the wake of the pandemic, several states have suspended labour laws—in toto or partially—to provide an industry-friendly environment. Experts say that such temporary measures are anti-labour and governments instead have to focus on comprehensive labour reform.
Another provision meant to help construction workers—40 per cent of whom are migrants—is the Building and Construction Workers Welfare Fund. It provides for social security benefits, including medical assistance, accident cover, pension, maternity benefits, educational assistance for children. However, this fund, collected and controlled by the states, has been sparingly used. For instance, of the Rs 49,688 crore collected by the states till March 31, 2019, only Rs 19,380
Migrants rush to board a tempo going across the UP border, May 15
crore, or 39 per cent, has been spent so far. Besides, the Act leaves out some 200 million of the 550 million construction workers since to avail of the benefits you must be registered with the Building and Construction Workers Welfare Board, and most contractors don’t allow that.
Migrant rights, too, vary across states. The Interstate Migrant Policy Index 2019, prepared by IMN, ranked states on the basis of equitable policies for residents and migrants on parameters such as labour policy, housing, social security, health, sanitation and political participation. Of the seven states studied, Kerala ranked on top, scoring 62 out of 100 while Delhi, at 33, ranked the lowest. Even Kerala needed considerable improvement, the study found, particularly in political inclusion and non-discriminatory access to housing.
In 2015, taking note of the issue of migrants, the Modi government set up a first-ever task force on migration—an 18-member Working Group on Migration under the Union ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation. In a report submitted in January 2017, the panel said the migrant population contributed substantially to economic growth and that it was necessary to secure their constitutional rights. Rather than specific legislation to protect the rights of migrant workers, the report recommended building an architecture to provide portability to all social welfare schemes so that a migrant registered under a scheme in his or her home state could access those benefits in the state where he or she was working. Till the pandemic struck, most of these recommendations had not been implemented. Only now has the central government announced it will implement the One Nation, One Ration Card scheme by March next year.
Amit Basole, director of the Centre for Sustainable Employment at the Azim Premji University, believes the
Covid crisis provides an opportunity to fast-track efforts to end regional disparities in economic development. “States such as UP, Bihar and Jharkhand can reimagine their economic landscapes and emerge as hubs of vibrant economic activity so that people from there don’t have to take long journeys and work in pathetic conditions,” he says. The UP government has already announced a Workers’ Employment Welfare Commission, which will work out social security and insurance for workers.
The way forward, some experts suggest, is greater coordination between source and destination states to ensure benefits portability for migrants, on the lines of the 2012 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to improve the living and working conditions of migrants from Odisha operating in Andhra’s brick kilns. The Bihar government is preparing a draft for signing MoUs with employer states. MP and Rajasthan have announced plans to create databases of outbound migrants. “Such moves are encouraging. I hope they consult migrants directly rather than think of solutions in a top-down way,” says Deshingkar.
The millions of migrants help drive the engine of the Indian economy, yet when an extraordinary situation warranted extraordinary measures, the government demonstrated little regard for the impact on their lives and livelihoods. The pandemic has opened our eyes to the plight of this invisible population. Both the central and state governments need to create a roadmap to make cities more welcoming for migrants by providing affordable transport and housing, extending social security cover and pushing employers to comply with labour laws. Their plight has been a national shame.
—with Rahul Noronha, Anilesh S. Mahajan and Rohit Parihar
“The movement of individuals shall remain ‘strictly prohibited’ between 7 pm and 7 am except for essential activities…”
—Ministry of Home Affairs circular, as reported by india today, May 17
The circular offered ‘relief for migrant workers by allowing inter-state movement of passenger vehicles and buses’ (IF two neighbouring states could agree on it). But said nothing about the millions voting with their feet on the highways. Those curfew hours condemned them to walking between 7 am and 7 pm in the hottest phase of summer, with temperatures touching
47 degrees Celsius.
A month earlier, Jamlo, a 12-year-old Adivasi girl, working in the chilli fields of Telangana, set out on foot to reach her home in Chhattisgarh after the lockdown halted work and income. This child walked 140 km in three days, then fell dead of exhaustion, dehydration and muscle fatigue—60 km from her home. How many more Jamlos will such curfew orders create?
First, the prime minister’s March 24 announcement stoked panic, giving a nation of 1.3 billion human beings four hours to shut down. Migrant workers everywhere began their long march home. Next, those the police could not beat back into their urban ghettos, we intercepted at state borders. We sprayed people with disinfectant. Many went into ‘relief camps’—a relief for whom it is hard to say.
The Mumbai-Nashik highway seemed busier under lockdown than in normal times. People moved any way they could. Bimlesh Jaiswal, who lost one leg in an accident years ago, travelled 1,200 km from Panvel, Maharashtra, to Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, on a gearless scooter, with his wife and three-year-old daughter. “Who shuts down a country with a four-hour notice?” he asks. Come on Bimlesh, you know the answer to that one.
Meanwhile, we said: “Hey, we’ll organise trains everywhere and send you guys home.” We did—and demanded full fare from hungry, desperate people. Then we cancelled some of those trains, as builders and other lobbies needed to stop their captive labour from fleeing. Those