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Migration
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What's Inside


The key findings of the report titled No Country for Workers: The COVID-19 Second Wave, Local Lockdowns and Migrant Worker Distress in India (released on 16th June, 2021), prepared by Stranded Workers Action Network-SWAN, are as follows (please click here to access):

• As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, almost 92 percent of the country’s workforce (who lack access to social safety nets) are experiencing a historic and unprecedented crisis. For the second time in a row in less than a year, the country witnessed a virtual lockdown. The effects of the restrictions in economic activity and the lack of any social security safeguards have hit the migrant and informal sector workers the hardest.

• In this report, SWAN has attempted to highlight the multiple dimensions of precarity experienced by migrant and informal workers during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Taking note of the disquieting trends, Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), a voluntary effort that started in March 2020 to mobilise relief for stranded migrant workers, relaunched its helpline on 21st April, 2021. By 31st May 2021, SWAN had received over 8,023 requests for ration support, medical assistance, transport help, rent, and other basic needs. Out of the total number of workers whom SWAN team members have been able to interact with, 88 percent (7,050) have received money transfers and 6 percent of the group have received repeat transfers. SWAN has thus far transferred Rs. 3.3 million. Additionally, given the overwhelming level of need, SWAN has engaged in several advocacy initiatives aimed at raising awareness on the nature and extent of the crisis, highlighting the need for extending the coverage of social security benefits, and holding governments accountable for their proposed policy actions.

• The present report mentions that the current crisis (2nd wave) has been similar to 2020's in terms of the dimensions of distress experienced, but also exceptional as it has compounded the problems of workers who now have little savings and limited access to safety nets. Through SWAN team members' conversations with around 8,000 workers and their family members it has recorded the limited availability of food and rations, lack of access to basic healthcare, low levels of income and earnings, increasing levels of indebtedness, the struggles of surviving in the city, and the additional set of concerns with returning to life in the villages.

• The distress from accumulated debts and erratic employment started with the lockdown in 2020 and has been prolonged in 2021, severely impacting the economic status of the workers. In the absence of any social security benefits, approximately 76 percent of them had Rs. 200 or lesser than Rs. 200 left with them when they first contacted SWAN. This is somewhat similar to trends reported in 2020 during a similar period (one month into lockdown) when 74 percent of the workers had Rs. 200 or less than Rs. 200 with them. Added to these miseries is the mounting levels of debt, the uncertainty of surviving in the city, the dilemma of returning to the villages where there is no work even under the MGNREGA, and the continuing health challenges.

• In the context of these deeply alarming trends, the SWAN team juxtaposes and studies the Central and State Governments’ responses. The State Governments’ responses have definitely been inadequate. Many of the policy initiatives introduced thus far have been limited in terms of coverage, procedurally confusing and alienating, on the whole failing to account for the needs of migrant workers and their families.

• It has been found that the Central Government’s response to be the most disconcerting as it appears to have all but abdicated responsibility, instead expecting the states to respond to the crisis. There have been no budgetary extensions or policy announcements that cover migrant workers’ distress. In the context of the government’s feeble response, SWAN has proposed a set of recommendations, many of which align with the long standing demands made by workers’ unions, civil society organisations, labour activists, policy experts and academics. These specific recommendations have been arrived at in consultation with academics and civil society organisations. SWAN has actively participated in these consultations. They discuss the feasibility of these measures and underscore the urgent need for the government to provide a comprehensive policy response that alleviates the growing distress of migrant and informal workers — a group that has suffered disproportionately due to the impacts of the pandemic.

• The response of the Central and State Governments has been far from adequate and there has been little to no action taken to extend relief to migrant and informal sector workers, finds the report. The Central Government has deflected almost all responsibility towards the states, so much so that the judiciary has had to intervene. The Supreme Court, specifically, has taken an active role and issued orders directing states to introduce food security measures for migrant communities, including the distribution of dry rations via the Atma Nirbhar scheme (or any other state or central scheme) and the running of community kitchens for migrant workers. In states where some measures have been announced, there is a continuing trend of half-baked policy initiatives that either leave out or do not fully cater to the needs of migrant labourers. Most states have reiterated hackneyed promises that mostly provide relief to a section of the working class and leave out the majority.

MAIN FINDINGS

• As on 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were found in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As on 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete lockdowns imposed by the states/ UTs.

• Drawing on 2020’s experience, the process of responding to a distress call and mobilising relief was systematised by SWAN. A structured needs assessment questionnaire (similar to the one used last year) was employed to elicit the necessary information about workers’ circumstances and assess their level of need.

• SWAN received a few calls in April and only started systematically logging information from 1st May. This explains inflated calls on 1st and 2nd May, 2021. SWAN has adjusted the data from April for the rest of the figures. Of all the calls, needs were assessed for 76 percent (others did not require aid, were directly forwarded to an NGO or were subsequently unreachable). The present report is mainly based on data collected via distress calls between 1st and 31st of May, 2021.

Coverage and migrant workers’ profiles

• Of the 8,371 workers and their families from whom SWAN was able to get some information, the majority of workers were concentrated in a few key states – Delhi (1,760), Maharashtra (1,507), West Bengal (692) and Uttar Pradesh (581). These trends are similar to those reported in 2020, with the exception of Delhi, where fewer calls were reported last year as compared to this year.

• Most of the calls SWAN received were from stranded migrants, stuck in their places of work. But this time round, approximately 9 percent of the calls SWAN received were from migrants who had recently returned home as well as from those who were in their villages and hometowns without any savings and work.

• The workers who reached out to SWAN are among the poorest and most vulnerable, as revealed by their insecure economic status. More than half (60 percent) were daily wage factory workers and 6 percent were non-group based daily wage earners like drivers, domestic help etc. The median daily wages of workers was Rs. 308. Nearly 74 percent of the workers earned Rs. 200-400 per day and 14 percent earned less than Rs. 200 per day.

• Notably, there is a much higher proportion of women and children in the groups of workers in 2021 as compared to 2020. While last year less than a quarter of those who reached out to SWAN included women and children, in 2021 84 percent of those calling in were with women and children.

• The concerns of the workers who stayed back in the city were many and there were no easy choices. The workers SWAN spoke to had to make tough choices on whether to spend on rent and food for themselves or send to their families back home; stay on in the city or travel back home; stay on in the hope of work resuming while worrying about catching the virus in the city, or go home to rising cases and no work. This year SWAN also received calls from large groups of migrant workers who were stranded in cities, particularly Delhi.

Employment interrupted and wages lost

• A startling number of workers reported a range of challenges such as the cessation and intermittent availability of work, problems of pending wages and absconding contractors.

• Interrupted or stopped work: Around 91 percent of the workers SWAN spoke to reported that work (daily and contractual) has stopped due to locally declared lockdowns. The number of days since work has stopped has also steadily risen in the later weeks of May, 2021.

• Pending wages: About 66 percent of the workers (for whom SWAN has this information) reported that they had not received their full wages or had been paid only partial wages for the previous month. However, only 8 percent had received any money from their employer since the work had stopped.

• Absconding contractors: SWAN's conversations with the workers revealed the levels of contravention and in some instances the complete absence of adherence to labour laws and standards. A few construction workers in Gurugram, Haryana, told SWAN of how they had been brought there from Bihar only a few days before the lockdown was announced. Their contractor had since abandoned them and had not even paid them for the days on which they had worked. Left without any income or support they were stranded in the city and had no means to return home. In another case, a group of factory workers in Gujarat were left with no money when their employer ran away without paying their dues.

• On 20th April 2021, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), announced that 20 control rooms, set up during the 2020 lockdown and used by “lakhs of workers”, were being relaunched to address grievances of workers through coordination with officials of the Labour Department in different states. The list of “worker helplines” includes 20 states/ zones with the contact details of 100 Labour Commissioners, including their email addresses. To understand the support being offered, SWAN volunteers called 80 officers from across these 20 zones and enquired about the assistance being provided to migrant workers with regard to: non-payment of due wages, provision of rations or cooked food, financial assistance to meet basic needs, protection from eviction by landlords, and support for travel back to their home states. The responses from the worker helplines revealed that the helpline is not for any migrant or informal worker and is only for those who work on Central Government projects. There was variation in responses across helplines. There was a worker-unfriendly system for submitting complaints. There was no tracking method. There was no assistance provided to address hunger. There was no assistance given to protect migrant workers from eviction and harassment by landlords.

Debt traps, cash struggles and dwindling food

• Debt traps: Given how interrupted work has been over the last year and a half, approximately 76 percent of people had Rs. 200 or lesser than Rs. 200 left with them when they spoke to SWAN. Many were unable to leave during the national lockdown in 2020 because of debts owed to landlords and shopkeepers. Those who were able to leave spent several months at home unable to find alternative employment even though several state governments promised work and loans to start small businesses. After their minimal savings were depleted, these workers were pushed to return to the cities once again in search of work. When the second wave and lockdowns hit, cash availability dipped precariously again.

• The precariousness of living without work and wages during this lockdown has led to accumulating debt. Debt burdens were also reported by workers who had more stable livelihoods and earned regular incomes.

• Still no portability of access to PDS, no provision of rations to migrant workers: One of the key reasons why food distress amongst migrant workers became so acute during the 2020 lockdown and again in 2021 is because of their exclusion from the PDS system in the places they migrate to. This exclusion is not restricted to migrant workers alone. Although the NFSA is supposed to cover 67 percent of the population, in reality this coverage is closer to 60 percent. This was reflected in the information collected from migrant workers who called SWAN too. More than half the workers (62 percent) did not have access to ration cards in either their home states or in their current locations. Even if these workers and their families possess a ration card, these are linked to their home addresses and to a specific ration shop. Unless the entire family migrates, the ration card is left at home with family members.

• Following the migrant worker crisis last year, the Central Government began to tout the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme as a panacea to address food insecurity amongst migrant workers. According to the Finance Minister, by March 2021 “this system will enable migrant workers and their family members to access PDS benefits from any Fair Price Shop in the country.” The ONORC scheme was supposed to make PDS entitlements portable, which would be immediately advantageous to migrant workers. More than a year since this announcement, SWAN found that 93 percent of the migrant workers had a ration card but this was not functional in the place where they were stranded. In Delhi, for instance, one worker reported how he had tried to apply for a Delhi Government ration card but had not been issued one and therefore had been forced to borrow money to feed his family.

• Access to the PDS at home was also erratic and there were issues related to exclusion from the system, distribution of inadequate quantities of ration, and authentication issues. As independent studies have pointed out, 100 million people are still excluded from the PDS. This was reflected in SWAN's conversations with workers as well — 62 percent of those who had returned home said they did not have a ration card. Quantity of ration too was an issue, whether in the cities or in the villages to which workers had returned. With no income, especially in places like Karnataka and Delhi where lockdowns had been imposed, the quantity of ration available through the PDS was inadequate, as one worker said, to meet a family’s food needs. Other issues, like exclusions due to failed biometric authentication, also persist, compounding the distress.

• Given this level of exclusion from the food security net, the situation of food distress amongst migrant workers becomes extremely grim. More than half (82 percent) of the workers whom SWAN spoke to (and for whom SWAN has this data) had 2 or less than two days’ worth of ration. This is a staggering figure even if it is less than the figures reported last year when 72 percent of the workers reported that their rations would finish in two days. The percentage of people (worker groups and families) with less than two days of ration has consistently been around half during the month of May.

• Scanty community kitchens and feeding centres: Unlike last year when some state governments opened feeding centres that provided cooked meals to stranded migrants, this year there were very few such initiatives by the government and civil society. The Delhi Government claims to have set up 265 feeding centres compared to 2,500 such centres set up in 2020. However, this list was not freely available to the public. Only in early May 2021 did SWAN come across a list of hunger relief centres (without any contact details) that were supposed to be operational across districts in Delhi.

A health crisis that is not just COVID-19 related

• Migrant workers, in addition to the fear of contracting the virus, have had to deal with existing medical concerns in the absence of wages and depleted savings. Unlike last year when the rates of transmission were considerably lower, this year SWAN also asked workers about their medical status and specifically if they or members of their family were experiencing COVID-19 or similar symptoms. Hearteningly, most workers (86 percent) did not report experiencing any such symptoms. However, 12 percent did report other non-medical conditions that ranged from fever, chronic conditions, tuberculosis (TB), disability due to accidents, and so on. And while there may not have been any immediate health impacts on the workers, the fear of falling ill with the virus was palpable.

• The 12 percent non-COVID-19 related health issues were also wide ranging and underscored the precarious situation that many who reached out to SWAN were in. Accidents had left some unable to work even before the second wave had started, especially where the principal breadwinner of the family was the one who had suffered the injury.

• Access to rural healthcare: While much of the public attention, particularly of the urban middle class, has been on the oxygen crisis in big cities, the coverage on the state of rural healthcare during this deadly second wave of the pandemic has been limited. There are notable exceptions in the English media, such as reports on the COVID-19 deaths in rural Uttar Pradesh, why people in rural India are hesitant to go to healthcare facilities even if COVID symptoms are detected, and misdiagnosis of COVID as typhoid in Jharkhand (Yadav, 2021, Masih, 2021, Angad, 2021). There is better coverage in the Hindi media.

Compounding the vulnerability of the marginalised

• While the calls received reflect the extreme distress of workers across the country, the condition of vulnerable groups within the workforce was even worse. Some groups were more adversely affected than others, especially women, a group from whom SWAN received many calls. Some women who requested money/ ration had husbands at home but the latter had lost their jobs. Other women had husbands who were stranded in places they had migrated to for work and who then found themselves unable to send money home during the lockdown.

• Single women especially faced the brunt of the loss of employment and wages. If the stress of the times was in itself a form of violence experienced by the families of workers struggling to make ends meet, there was also the looming worry of domestic violence that some callers addressed. Another group under stress were pregnant women and nursing mothers. The differently abled were another vulnerable group. Children too have not remained unaffected. They have been forced to work to make ends meet for the family.

Journeying back and travel within the city: Both a struggle

• Like 2020 during the nationwide lockdown when many decided to trek back to their villages, this year too many migrants were trying to make their way back home. The sight of workers with weary children and meagre belongings trudging through the heat of the summer is still a recent memory. This year the localised lockdowns led to some hesitancy and confusion and many were unsure as to whether they should return to their villages or wait in the cities till the lockdown measures were lifted. However, it was increasingly clear that as the lockdown was extended week by week, more and more workers were desperate to make their way back to their villages. In all, 11 percent of the migrant workers and their families returned to their village (out of 6,693 people that SWAN has data for).

• Costs of travel were an issue as trains, the cheapest mode of transport, were not available to all destinations. In some instances the decision to travel back was the result of threat or force. One worker reported being coerced into making the choice to travel back home by his landlord who threatened them with eviction if they were unable to pay the rent. While movement between states was restricted, local movement within cities was subject to other kinds of risks.  

No roof over the head: The burden of rent and the threat of eviction

• With no earnings, rents were of concern as they constituted a considerable proportion of the family expenditure. Work-from-home is a much-used phrase during this lockdown. But for workers living a hand to mouth existence there was no work and they lived under constant fear of having no home either. Evictions, while a worry for some, were an immediate concern for others.

No work in the city, no work back home in the village: Challenges of MGNREGA

• With intermittent work available and lockdown in effect in many cities, migrant workers were reluctant to return home because there were no employment opportunities in the village and securing work under MGNREGA had proved difficult for many last year. It has been widely reported that MGNREGA employment in May this year has seen a sharp decline. Last year when all alternative employment came to a standstill during the national lockdown, MGNREGA played a crucial role in providing income support to workers in rural India, many of whom were returned migrants. State Governments made efforts to ensure that recently returned migrants were provided job cards soon after they returned. Work was proactively opened, providing much needed financial relief. More than 11 million new families registered for MGNREGA and 20 million more families worked under MGNREGA in 2020 when compared to the previous year. However, this year MGNREGA has practically come to a standstill across states. None of the workers who were back home and reached out to SWAN had gotten any MGNREGA employment in April or May. This was corroborated by several civil society organisations SWAN has been in touch with as well.

• When team members receiving distress calls asked workers who reached out to SWAN about MGNREGA, they mentioned a range of issues with getting work back at home — many preferred to go to the cities in search of work.

Vaccination Woes: Scarcity and Hesitancy

• The data is quite preliminary but SWAN finds that while there was some knowledge of vaccination for COVID-19, relatively few workers had been vaccinated. Then from 22nd May, SWAN began capturing some information on vaccinations and by 31st May had collected 452 responses from workers. In particular, SWAN asked the workers if they knew of the vaccination drive for COVID-19 and if they had been vaccinated or had tried to register for the vaccine. Of the 452, only 10 percent (45) of the workers who called us had been vaccinated. The majority of them had received their vaccination in a PHC or a camp held in their village, while 14 of them had received their vaccine in a private facility, either a clinic or a hospital.

• Those who tried to get vaccinated but could not made up 18 percent (82). The reasons ranged from not having information, trying to register but failing, non-availability of vaccines and crowded PHCs. There were others who said that they had no knowledge about the vaccine or registration process or how to get the vaccine. While on the one hand there was scarcity, on the other there was also some hesitancy expressed.

Recommendations

• Food: The extension of expanded food rations to PDS card holders till November 2021 is welcome. India should further leverage the 100 million tonnes of food grain (over three times the buffer stock norms) for:
-Expanding PDS food distribution to non-PDS card holders till November 2021;
-Specific expansions of ICDS delivery for families with children, and additions to rations as well as meals (including eggs) at schools and anganwadis

• Income: Undertaking crisis cash transfers of Rs. 3,000 per month for 6 months

• Work: Expanding NREGA work entitlements to 150 days; Initiating immediate public works programmes for urban employment

• For income, the proposed crisis cash transfer must leverage existing direct benefit transfer systems (NREGA, PM-KISAN, PMJDY, NSAP) with new decentralised systems of direct distribution from ration shops, post offices, panchayats and other local institutions.

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Please click here and here to access the Press release by Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) dated 5th May, 2021. In its press statement, the civil society group has asked for provision of social security benefits to returnee migrants and informal workers in the wake of second wave of Covid-19 and local lockdowns imposed in many states. Kindly click here to access the note on the types of distress and testimonies that the workers shared with SWAN volunteers.

Rural Expert
 

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