Given the environment of uncertain livelihood, it is vital to strengthen the resilience of the financial system, foster efficient skill delivery mechanisms, programmes and partnerships
The issue of migrant workers has evoked widespread debate in the development discourse of India. Considered in a proper historical and comparative perspective, migration has provided an important mechanism for people to extricate themselves out of the vicious circle of poverty. While Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar account for the highest outflow of migrant workers, others like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan, too, provide a chunk of the workforce that is mainly employed in construction, factories, textiles, brick kilns, transport and agriculture.
In 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel predicted that the refugee crisis would be the defining feature of the decade. In the case of India, the Five-Year Plan documents, cross-cutting empirical substantiation and anecdotal evidence clearly bring out that migration was not adequately factored in development plans and strategy. This is surprising because migration impacts competitiveness, productivity, jobs, labour market governance, labour migration and local development.
This issue has acquired heightened significance because of the change brought by the pandemic and the emergence of new vulnerabilities. It is no longer “business as usual” and we need to give undivided attention to labour and the health conditions of migrant workers. The inadequacies of migration, asylum and labour mobility policies require rectification of the structural debilities of the public health systems, particularly at the level of primary Public Health Centres (PHCs) and preparedness for effective quarantine facilities. Hence, a multi-pronged approach is necessary and several demands have been made to influence the pattern of growth and irreversibility of employment and reduce the workers’ hardships like the loss of income, food shortages and uncertainty about their future. The ‘one nation, one ration card’ system is a step in that direction as it would benefit the workers by addressing the problem of ration card portability. It would benefit nearly 670 million people and will be completed by March 2021. Some of the other demands for worker welfare include the formation of an inter-State coordination committee to ensure safe passage of migrants to their villages and the creation of a legal cell at the Centre and State level in the light of claims of non-payment of wages, forced leave and retrenchments. We have to protect wages and direct transfer of wages to their bank accounts and provide health facilities at the panchayat level.
Recent policy changes: The situation brooks no delay and the Government has taken cognisance of the issue and announced key economic responses to contain the impact on migrant workers. Focussing on migrant workers, small farmers and street vendors, the Finance Minister announced a Rs 30,000 crore through NABARD, in addition to the already existing Rs 90,000 crore for the Rabi harvest and post-harvest Rabi-related work for small and marginal farmers. Further, Rs 2 lakh crore concessional credit will be provided to two crore farmers. About Rs 11,000 crore were allocated to the urban poor, which includes migrant workers, for building shelters for the homeless, along with food and water. The Government has also permitted State Governments to use the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for setting up shelter for migrants and providing them sustenance. Migrant workers will also have a rental housing scheme and several Government-funded housings in major cities would be developed into affordable rental housing complexes on a PPP mode. Street vendors will get a credit facility of Rs 5,000 crore, which will help 50 lakh street vendors to immediately start their business. The Centre will transfer eight lakh tonnes of grain and 50,000 tonnes of Bengal gram to State Governments to provide five kilograms of grain (wheat or rice) per labourer and one kg of Bengal gram per family per month for two months, free of cost. This is expected to benefit up to eight crore migrant workers under the PDS. But this could go beyond the National Food Security Act coverage and include those currently excluded.
Fostering innovation: Given the ubiquity and scale of this crisis, several innovative mechanisms and instruments have been suggested to fight the pandemic. These include launching of a Rs 5,000 crore credit facility for over 50 lakh street vendors and the use of District Mineral Foundation funds for response and preparedness. All these are contextually significant initiatives but they need to be carefully considered in the light of serious State-specific differences in terms of resources, the outbreak and development challenges, including the difficulty in counting facilities and resources and shortage of manpower.
Rethinking ways and means: The imperatives for a sharper focus on migrants stem from the iniquitous socio-economic impact of the pandemic. The Centre and States must, therefore, work as partners in development by strengthening social security, infrastructure and a more accessible registration processes. This is a huge task and requires better coordination between States; portability of benefits by State Governments, e.g., health insurance or access to schools or PDS within their States, especially as the vast majority of migration happens within the State and districts. Subsequently this should lead to portability of nationwide benefits. State Governments must also avoid the “son of the soil” argument which violates the rights of citizens to live and work in any part of the country. States must resist the temptation to make their official language a compulsory subject in schools and there should be mandatory availability of paperwork in every State in all the scheduled languages of the country. States must recognise the entitlements of migrant workers, particularly for construction workers. There is a need for complementing registration efforts at the destination by strengthening the documentation process at the panchayat level and streamlining the Social Security Code Bill, 2019 to make it stronger.
Mainstreaming the marginalised: The issue of migrant workers needs to be considered in its entirety in order to formulate a speedy and effective response. For many migrants, staying home is not an option, necessitating attention on prevention of long-term damage to their livelihoods. Accordingly, we must devise a programme for survival and a medium-term blueprint for growth and structural transformation. This is a tall order and requires a review of national legal, regulatory and institutional concerns in the resettlement and rehabilitation of labourers. We must adopt a human rights approach to address socio-legal issues and policy coherence and coordination. Resolution of contradictions in trade, fiscal, monetary and other policies (e.g., the implementation of the report of the task force on migration 2017), expansion of the outreach of the Integrated Child Development Services-Anganwadi and auxiliary nurse midwives to include migrant women and children, and inclusion of children in the annual work plans of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan under the Education Guarantee and Alternative and Innovative Education schemes would be helpful.
Given the persistence of the overarching environment of uncertain livelihood, wage loss and layoffs, it is necessary to significantly strengthen the resilience of the financial system, skill migrant workers and foster efficient and effective skill delivery mechanisms, programmes and partnerships. In the end, we will overcome and the crisis.
(The writer is Governor of Rajasthan)