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Migrant workers’ crisis

Kashmir Times. Dated: 3/30/2020 8:20:51 PM

The Centre and state governments must step up coordination and reach out to migrant workers for providing relief

In his effort to meet the challenge posed by the deadly Coronavirus spread, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to declare 21-day long lockdown across the country, has only added to chaos and confusion. The migrant workers, who are out of their home villages, towns and cities in search of better employment opportunities have been left high and dry in the absence of suspension of Railway and bus services. They have been forced to trek hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes or left to fend for themselves after they have lost jobs, out of work after closure of factories across the country. With no income and cash in hand, these workers have been forced to depend on doles from the Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and self-help groups for food and water on their way back home. Scenes of women breaking down on Railway Stations after they missed their food packets, labourers walking 200 kilometres to reach their homes in Uttarakhand and a couple walking 450 kilometres to reach their home in Madhya Pradesh from Gujarat were flashed on the front pages of some newspapers. These are not only the travails of scores of workers trekking across the length and breadth of their states to reach their homes across the country. There are thousands of workers, who have been waiting at Railway Stations and Bus Depots endlessly for the next bus to their homes and making two ends meet on the free rations given to them by the people. There are lakhs of workers, who are stranded at many places in different states waiting to avail of the transport services on their way home. They could get only one proper meal in more than 60 hours. Countless such heart-rending stories have come to light ever since Narendra Modi asked all Indians to stay at home to check the spread of the novel Coronavirus. The closure of all but essential services as a result of the lockdown, which began on March 25, has dried up sources of livelihood of workers in the country’s informal sector, many of them migrants. It’s clear that along with addressing the public health challenge, the country will have to find ways to alleviate the mounting distress of rickshaw pullers, construction workers, those working at small roadside eateries, and other daily wagers, including and especially those who are migrants.
Instead of making the lockdown a success to contain the spread of the Coronavirus and it taking the shape of community virus, the NDA-government has only added to the miseries of the poor migrant labourers. In fact, herding of the workers at the bus stations in some parts of Delhi is only exposing them to the grave risk of the virus in huge numbers. During the last few days when the Uttar Pradesh government arranged around 1000 buses for transporting the migrant labourers to their destinations, there were thousands of others who kept on waiting in crowded open areas and shelters at the Anand Vihar Inter-State Bus Terminal (ISBT). They were without water and food overnight and some of them for days together. Some workers with their families were waiting for the food and water to reach them while they waited for the buses. It has become a mess for the migrant workers. Measures announced by the Centre aimed to ensure food supplies and ease the cash woes of the most vulnerable sections are unlikely to reach the targeted populations. These measures have been rightly criticised as inadequate. They also seem insensitive to the plight of the migrant workers. Routing relief through the MGNREGA, for instance, might benefit people in the informal sector only after they reach their villages, and that too, only if there is work to be done. The package for Self Help Groups (SHGs) will not reduce the stress of migrant women workers who are stranded far from their villages. The states will have to coordinate their efforts in providing relief and succour to the stranded migrant workers and the Centre has to step up its efforts with more money to help the poor and marginalised sections of the society. Shortage of food is already threatening to expose the fragile system handled by the government and scramble for food may not be far away.