TACKLING COVID-19

of such daily wage-earners is about 27 per cent in the city of Delhi. These 27 per cent constitute a very large number, given that the population of the greater Delhi area is almost 20 million. Many of these migrant workers have hardly any funds left after not being able to get any gainful work for the past several days since the lockdown began, and wanted to go home to their villages hoping that they would somehow manage better given the greater social bonds and community living in villages, compared to the big cities.

But besides these daily wage-earners, who have no savings to meet such a situation, Indians largely don’t have a very

Should not the government have made plans for meeting the daily needs of the migrants and others whose daily earnings would come to a complete standstill? needs from whatever they were able to earn. Even if we accept some under-reporting in these responses, these figures indicate daily wage earners don’t have any savings which would allow them to buy food and other necessities beyond a few days if their daily wages get stopped.

Despite the Centre and various state governments giving assurances on arranging for their food and accommodation, large numbers of the poor migrants still want to go “home” — largely due to the uncertainty around the lockdown — with no one quite sure when things might improve. The government did a good job of sending out a clear message through an official statement that the lockdown would not be extended beyond April 14. While the government may still extend it if the situation so requires, this assurance did help send out a clear message, which led to a slowing down of the exodus.

No one will really deny that a lockdown was the only effective