The distress migration of workers from rural areas has been on the rise in Odisha and the condition of these workers is most horrible without any visible change. The issues of distress migration of rural workers mostly from among marginalized social groups in backward regions of the State have direct link with land ownership, caste-based discrimination and political power.
The migrant workers are mostly landless, socially excluded in village and politically powerless as they are not getting unionized to bargain and get protected from exploitation by money lenders, labour contractors and middlemen. There has been no institutional intervention to address the structural issues to bring desired change in the life of these workers. The continued inequality in social status, skewed productive assets ownership and limited access to public employment and other opportunities need to be changed through direct State intervention in fevour of the hapless lot.
It is fact that the vast majority of migrant workers are landless, seasonal agricultural workers and sharecroppers who are seasonally employed in agriculture sector. Therefore, they must be provided with homestead and agricultural land by which they get employed in their own land throughout the year. There are enough Government land, such as waste land, ceiling surplus land, Bhoodan land, forest land and temple land which are available in all backward areas of the State and can be productively utilized by transferring ownership through lease to landless poor engaged in agriculture. This will not only boost agriculture production but also generate huge employment for the rural workers. But in spite of law after independence, the land owning classes in backward areas have been opposing the progressive land reform in form of distribution of land to the landless agricultural workers and rights of sharecroppers because of fear of losing low paid wage labour for their firms and sharing of benefits of production and subsidy of Government with sharecroppers. This continued middle age exploitation must come to an end with reasonable distribution of available Government land. Many developed States such as Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu have done model work by distributing land and ensuring rights of the sharecroppers. Experience shows the States having fair land distribution have affirmatively contributed in changing the rural socio-economic setting and production relation by which the standard of workers of the marginalized sections has improved in many ways.
The State Government must make use of all Central schemes such as MGNREGS and watershed projects by linking it to land development along with irrigation and electricity for the productive use of land where the whole family members can be employed in production activities throughout the year. The non- official use of machine in MGNREGS must be stopped to ensure more working days for the job card holders. This will bring food security and improve the nutrition level of the family members, especially women and children. The scope of agriculture should not be limited to only one-time paddy cultivation but it must include production of fruits, vegetables, pulses, dairy, poultry, and cash crops suitable to the soil condition of that particular agro climatic zone. The ownership over homestead land in the village will change the social status of the marginalized sections by construction of decent house of their own and near the house there needs to be backyard cultivation. The house must have source of safe drinking water, toilet and electricity facilities under respective Government schemes for a standard living. Added to increase in verities of agriculture produces, the availability of land, water and electricity in every rural household will boost scope for manufacturing sector.
The manufacturing sector of the State has a very insignificant share in the GDP though there is enough scope of expansion by involving surplus agriculture workers.
Along with productive assets and basic infrastructure, our social environment needs to be conducive for growth. In the current social setting of villages, the issues of caste -based discrimination , untouchability practice and atrocities are major cause of social segregation of the marginalized communities. It has a direct bearing on local employment, self-employment, business and service delivery activities of the village. Dalits, Adivasies and most backward communities face discrimination in local employment market because of their social identity based on birth. They face social, cultural and language barrier in a multi –caste, multi –culture and multi-language regions where the dominant caste people usually do not allow these marginal groups to have a free access to available employment opportunities .Their low social status prevents them from entering into any productive engagement with different social groups of the village and locality.
Youths of the Dalit communities are not allowed to do business in market areas even there are places where they have no free access to service centers, teas shops and saloons. The produces such as milk, rice, food items etc. are not directly sold out by Dalit communities in the village. They are not only allowed to open tea stalls, food item stores, hotels, eateries and tiffin shops in the village but also prevented to be employed in such shops of the village/localities. The Dalit women are not preferred as cook mid-day meal in school or work as Aganwadi workers and helpers or other such service providers under various schemes.
Social discrimination encourages migration because of continued social subjugation, domination, discrimination and atrocities by dominant castes. Studies have found that many Dalit families do not enjoy a dignified living in the village and prefer to stay away from the village. However, socially inclusive discrimination- free social environment definitely is a very strong factor that can discourage distress condition in the village and promote fellow feeling, cooperation and cooperative actions among the fellow villagers. Social factors have direct impact over production, income and employment in rural areas. Therefore, enforcement of anti-discriminatory laws and social reform activities for infusing progressive culture and non-discriminatory values is highly recommended by social movements to arrest distress migration.
The third most important area is unionization of rural workers which will promote political will and fight bureaucratic apathy to protect them from exploitation in form of low wage, debt bondage and physical abuse of women and children. The union would make the workers aware about their rights and entitlements and above all about implementation of schemes and programme that are primarily targeted for assets creation, income and employment generation. It is being observed that there has been an absence of social entrepreneurs and activist for social, political and economic mobilization among landless rural workers, agricultural workers and share croppers to raise their issues and to represent their collective bargaining power before the Government. The civil society groups, trade unions, independent trade unions, social movements and community organizations have a major role in the mobilization process of rural workers at Panchayat, block, district and State levels. The landless migrant workers can be mobilized to producer cooperatives for meaningful productive activities to meet the demand of the market and their unions can negotiate with Government, banks, NGOs and corporates for financing their developmental activities. The union will play an effective role in monitoring the labour trafficking by middlemen and contractors to check distress migration and exploitation at work place.
The labour Department should send its officials to the destination of migrant workers in different States and negotiate with the local authority there to check exploitation and bring them back with a plan of realistic rehabilitation in the village.
The Panchayats must have a database of all workers and about their movements so that it would be monitored locally under the provisions of the Interstate Migrant Workmen (regulation of employment and service condition) Act 1979.
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