-Scroll.in Data in Lucknow showed that mean monthly income for labour work fell 62%, from Rs 9,500 per month in pre-pandemic times to Rs 3,500 per month now. Asked how the lockdown-induced economic crisis affected the lives-livelihoods of daily wage workers, Rajesh Singh, in his early 20s in Lucknow said, “Since the time of Covid and the lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labor markets. Getting...
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As the Rich Receive State Patronage, Modi Has Left the Poor to Be 'Atmanirbhar' -Ravi Joshi
-TheWire.in Under Modi, the state bears the losses of the rich, with tax concessions and state subsidies. But, working classes have to live through complete doing away of fertiliser subsidies, and petrol and diesel subsidies. Last year on May 12, in the peak of COVID -19-induced lockdown, when the poorest of the poor migrant workers were walking thousands of kilometres to their homes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the insight of an...
More »The pandemic has hampered social auditing of MGNREGA
When a massive sum of public money is spent on a programme like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA)--a demand-driven programme, there is likelihood of financial misappropriations and mismanagement. Thankfully there are checks and balances in the rural employment guarantee legislation to counter such malpractices. It is worth noting that the total allocation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) for 2020-21 was Rs. 1,11,500.00 crore (R.E.), up...
More »Declining Wages, No Government Aid: Daily Wage Workers Are Stuck in a Deep Crisis -Deepanshu Mohan, Jignesh Mistry, Advaita Singh, Snehal Sreedhar, Sunanda Mishra, Shivani Agarwal, Vanshika Mittal and Ada Nagar
-TheWire.in A survey of mazdoor mandis in Surat, Lucknow and Pune shows that even many months after the lockdown ended, workers are struggling to make ends meet. “Since the time of COVID-19 lockdown, there has been a severe crisis of employment opportunities in local labour markets. Getting work for even two days a week is difficult for us. Daily wages too, for any work possible, have dipped by half,” says Rajesh Singh,...
More »Ground Zero: iPhone plant violence -- The making of a tinderbox -Sharath S Srivatsa
-The Hindu Long shifts and failure to resolve payment and overtime issues allegedly led to the violence by the workers in an iPhone factory in Narasapura earlier this month. Sharath S. Srivatsa reports on the night of the unrest and the many violations of labour rules by Wistron Anxiety writ large on their faces, Abhishek and Sunil walk into a small playground littered with garbage. Their attentive eyes scan the area to...
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