28/May/2020
The migrant conundrum is thus a culmination of prolonged structural denial of basic economic rights by neo-liberal state machinery in concurrent with the social and moral apathy towards the marginalised sections who constitute the majority of the migrant workers in India. They are dispossessed by both the state and society. The mere transportation facilities to their homes or mere labour reforms are not an all-time panacea for their problems. The change in the discriminatory social behaviour and public attitude towards workers, the inclusion of affirmative policies and a transformation in the nature of state from a neoliberal establishment to a more welfare entity can advance an egalitarian social and economic realm in which rights, dignity and respect of the workers from socially marginalised sections are assured and protected.//
So deep had they entered our mind-space that stereotypes became embedded — like the farm labourer from Bihar, the domestic maid from West Bengal, the sturdy foundry worker from Jharkhand, the indefatigable ones from Uttar Pradesh and others from Odisha or Rajasthan.
Unless we can know and reach benefits to each such worker — which is not impossible in a digital age — the present fiasco will be repeated. To locate the only positive step taken to protect migrant labour we have to go back by 51 years, to the heydays of socialist hopes, 1979.
The Janata party government passed the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act. It mandated that labour contractors who export workers to other states have to register at both ends and take licences. Those who employ more than five migrant labourers are duty bound to provide proper wages, housing, medical facilities, pass-books, displacement allowance and anything else that the government of dreamers could cobble together.
The Act is to be implemented by the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) or the CLC (C), who is also supposed to implement 14 other equally demanding laws. These include many that are under the hawk-eyes of powerful trade union leaders.
Though it promises to give more rights to migrant workers than the earlier law, we must remember that everything depends on implementation and not on desires. In this digital age, we may stress more on block-chained digital administrative techniques, like smart cards for inter-state workers.//
29/ May/ 2020
//‘India’ was full aware that millions from ‘Bharat’ had populated their cities and this ‘India’ had become so addicted to their help that life was unimaginable without them.
So deep had they entered our mind-space that stereotypes became embedded — like the farm labourer from Bihar, the domestic maid from West Bengal, the sturdy foundry worker from Jharkhand, the indefatigable ones from Uttar Pradesh and others from Odisha or Rajasthan.
Unless we can know and reach benefits to each such worker — which is not impossible in a digital age — the present fiasco will be repeated. To locate the only positive step taken to protect migrant labour we have to go back by 51 years, to the heydays of socialist hopes, 1979.
The Janata party government passed the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act. It mandated that labour contractors who export workers to other states have to register at both ends and take licences. Those who employ more than five migrant labourers are duty bound to provide proper wages, housing, medical facilities, pass-books, displacement allowance and anything else that the government of dreamers could cobble together.
The Act is to be implemented by the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) or the CLC (C), who is also supposed to implement 14 other equally demanding laws. These include many that are under the hawk-eyes of powerful trade union leaders.
Though it promises to give more rights to migrant workers than the earlier law, we must remember that everything depends on implementation and not on desires. In this digital age, we may stress more on block-chained digital administrative techniques, like smart cards for inter-state workers.//
//The State Government has decided to conduct skill mapping of migrant returnees to provide them employment opportunities.
The Council of Ministers also approved establishment of a textile park at Dhamra. The project to be set up under the Centre’s Mega Textile Parks Scheme will provide employment opportunities for 20,000 people. //
News:
04/June/2020
//UP govt survey says 77% of these 23.5 lakh migrant workers want to stay back and work in the state, as of 2 June. Of the total, 16.6 lakh are unskilled labourers.
Siddharth Nath Singh, the minister for MSME, Investment & Export, Textile, Khadi & Gram Udyog in the UP government, said millions of new jobs can be created through MSMEs. The Yogi Adityanath government’s ‘One District One Product’ scheme, which is for the production and promotion of famous items, might be the best for workers in their native districts. For instance, native workers can be linked with chikankari work in Lucknow, or with perfume manufacturing in Kannauj.//
News:
04/June/2020
//The Covid-19 triggered exodus is a sudden reversal of this cumulative migration of seven decades. The resulting churning is an opportunity for India’s socioeconomic renaissance.
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha face a multiple disaster scenario and are scrambling to provide healthcare, sustenance and employment for returnees. The major host states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi and Kerala are trying to minimise the loss of labour and skills and prime for ‘unlocking’ of economic activity.
UP and Bihar, with largest returnee loads, have realised their shramiks’ asset value. They are establishing data bases, skills directory and migration institutions. Yogi Adityanath and Nitish Kumar are working to secure better economic and social security bargains for them and MoUs with host states. Home states will draw upon the Centre’s Mig rant Workers Welfare Fund and other poverty eradication and economic empowerment schemes, including enhanced MGNREGA.
The samudra manthan (great churning) of the Indian economy by Covid-19 pandemic has spewed the poison of a major economic and human development setback for India. If we use the migrant labour crisis as an opportunity to transform our economy and society, the churning may yet bring up the amrit (nectar) of immortal progress – the demographic dividend – a key goal of PM Modi’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat.//
10/June/2020
//The skill mapping of 2.5 lakh out of the five lakh migrant workers who returned to Jharkhand from different states has revealed that most are skilled and majority of them were engaged in construction, automotive and electronics sectors, government officials said.
In the first round of skill mapping, Jharkhand government has mapped the skills of 2,50,056 inbound migrant workers till now. Of those surveyed, 1,77,186 or 70% returnees are skilled labourers, while the rest 72,871 are unskilled workers, according to the state government’s assessment.//
20/June/2020
//The hotspot of these relief shelters and camps were in the cities of Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, etc. The southern states have handled the situation relatively well as compared to the capital, Delhi and western states; eastern India being the labour supply hub in the country.
There are several estimates from the governments surveys (census, national sample surveys, and other national level surveys) and others rough estimates currently floating around about the number of migrants who have left from the destinations (mostly urban places) and reached their native places. Some of those estimates are://
There are several estimates from the governments surveys (census, national sample surveys, and other national level surveys) and others rough estimates currently floating around about the number of migrants who have left from the destinations (mostly urban places) and reached their native places. Some of those estimates are://
News:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/red-button-day-light/estimation-and-skill-mapping-of-migrant-workers/
28/June/2020
//SAMPARKA (Software Application for Migrated Person to Assam for Rejuvenating Karma Abhiyan), launched by the P&RD department, has so far registered about 17,000 migrant workers eligible for the facilities, including job cards under MGNREGA.//
29/June/2020
//Jharkhand has just concluded a survey of 3.61 lakh migrant workers ( 3,35,221 men and 25,699 women), who returned to the state in the wake of the lockdown. The findings have been both significant and surprising. Conducted by the Department of Rural Development, with assistance from the Help Desk set up by the Congress
The survey for the first time has identified the skill-set of the workers in the state, their employers outside the state and the potential areas where they could work in the state.//
News:
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/jharkhand-survey-maps-skill-sets-and-find-most-migrant-workers-outside-central-schemesOther steps to solve the riddle:
1. Tracking Internal Migration
//Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday went for the jugular on the National Population Register and dismissed the contentious additional questions as an ordinary administrative process.
The Prime Minister justified the need for certain categories of information, dwelling on mother tongues. This has never been such a big issue as it is today given the internal migration, he said.//
News: 07/Feb/2020
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/narendra-modi-defends-national-population-register-new-questions/cid/1743067
2. Pan-India Ration card portability
3. Registry of workers in Unorganized sector
//The new look 'Unorganised Worker Identification Number (U-WIN)' will be seeded with Aadhaar and have expanded coverage. Besides, it would include other information such as qualifications and skill set of the worker.
In 2014 the labour ministry had launched a pilot for Unorganised Worker Identification Number (U-WIN) in Gujarat, but the project was stalled on the grounds that it was a duplication of Aadhaar that was conceived as a single identification number for individuals.//
News: 31/May/2020
https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/unorganised-sector-workers-may-get-ids/articleshow/76124747.cms
4. Need for Central Legislation/Parliamentary Law
//We have to think beyond the reflex paranoia about Aadhaar cards and privacy violations so as to come up with a really well thought out scheme for this class that has suffered such an unprecedented current crisis. We just have to devise a digital multi-purpose benefit smart-card, that can be used anywhere, to draw money without queuing at remote banks and this improved DBT has to work at ATMs and other points and also entitle these devastated sections to draw their rations from wherever.
Article 217 read together with ‘list 1’, under the seventh schedule clearly mentions ‘item 81’, namely, “inter-state migration and inter-state quarantine” to be a power of the centre. The central government alone is empowered to deal with this in general, and inter-state migrant workers are surely a part of the ‘power’ and the responsibility. The list of states’ powers and responsibilities clearly do not mention ‘inter state migrants’ but that does not absolve them totally, as they are both recipients of such labour and exporters as well.
The Concurrent List of powers on which the centre and states can both legislate and administer has quite a few relevant entries. Item 22 mentions “trade unions, industrial and labour disputes” while item 24 cites “welfare of labour” and allied issues.
Frankly, these have helped organised labour to a large extent, but the unorganised sector was always a pitch black area under the lamp. It is a hard fact that trade unions were more bothered about their own fee-paying members and in getting further gains for them. They are partly to blame for ignoring the great bulk of the amorphous informal workforce.//
News: 29/May/2020
https://thewire.in/labour/lockdown-migrant-workers-policy-analysis
