Demonetisation has hurt migrant workers

The renegotiation of informal relationships has strained the networks of employment in the informal sector

As the focus shifts from demonetisation to remonetisation, one priority of this government, as articulated by the Prime Minister in his New Year’s Eve speech is to “help the honest, protect them, and ease their difficulty”. The metaphor of the honest Indian conjures up several images—the farmer, the entrepreneur, the salaried employee—and there were tangible rewards for some in the speech.

As hardworking, honest and in possibly more difficulty are those employed in the urban informal sector, many of them rural migrants who came to the city to diversify household incomes beyond agriculture and in pursuit of a better life. How their expectations of rewards will be met are unclear. The government will need to think about addressing the urgent needs of this important segment of India’ workforce that constitute, among others, construction workers, contractual factory workers and the self-employed like street vendors and small-scale retailers.

In the cash-strapped days post demonetisation, many of these workers were pushed into more precarious, casual and insecure work. The scrambling for work and the renegotiation of informal relationships have strained the networks of employment that characterise the informal sector.

The PM must deploy his credibility to reassure migrants and reduce their pain through deeper policy engagement at all levels. First, considering that a large minority of migrants are employed in construction, he must urge States to utilise the unused cess funds from the construction workers welfare boards (CWWB). Increasing registrations and working with states to design and implement projects including rental housing, and health and education facilities must be an absolute priority.

Second, the government must ensure that migrants can access social benefits like the public distribution system (PDS), health and education at destination as well as at source. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed confidence in our ability to move towards digitalisation in pursuit of a cashless economy.

By making social protection portable, using the same digitalisation, the government can substantially reduce precariousness for migrant workers. Digitalisation can resolve issues of documentation, unique identification and inter-governmental expenditure assignment to ensure full portability of benefits across the board. Mukta Naik, Eesha Kunduri and Ashwin Parulkar are researchers at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi The views expressed are personal