By Ashok Gulati, Shyma Jose & BB Singh
With single-day spikes in Covid-19 situations surpassing 1.45 lakh final week, India’s second wave is probably to be longer and more intense than the initial one. Many states have announced partial lockdowns and more are probably to adhere to. The worry of complete lockdown has currently triggered some migrant workers moving back from industrial centres and cities to their native villages.
The Centre and the state governments have failed to study from the earlier lockdown, which resulted in disrupted provide-chains, considerable decline in output development, important raise in unemployment and lowered earnings and savings, threatening meals and livelihood safety of millions of workers in the nation. The worst-hit have been the migrant workers.
These migrant workers, who faced the brunt of the pandemic, have not totally recovered from the earlier lockdown. In a current study by ICRIER in collaboration with the Inferential Survey Statistics and Research Foundation (ISSRF), we examined the influence of the pandemic on migrant workers employing a survey of 2917 migrants in six states, namely, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, which accounted for two-third of the reverse migrants through the initial lockdown. We performed the survey in 3 phases: Phase-1 among June and August 2020 Phase-2 among November and December 2020 and Phase-3 through the final week of February 2021, to capture the varying degrees of vulnerabilities amongst the migrants prior to, through, and just after the initial lockdown.
The study identified that the sudden imposition of initial lockdown had a serious influence on the earnings and savings of the migrants as soon as they reached back to their villages. More than a third of the reverse migrants (38.6%) reported obtaining no work just after returning to their native spot. With no appropriate employment chance for these migrants in their native areas, their household incomes fell by as substantially as 85% through the initial wave (see graphic).
With the revival of financial activities post-initial lockdown, we identified that on an typical 63.5% of migrants from these six states had returned to the location places by February 2021, even though 36.5% have been nonetheless in their villages at their native areas. Notably, remigration to the location post-lockdown was the highest from Bihar (92.5%), followed by Uttar Pradesh and Odisha (65% each and every). In comparison, the migrants from West Bengal (40.3%) and Jharkhand (31.2%) have been hesitant to return to the location region post-lockdown.
Although the migrants’ household earnings has improved just after remigration to their location areas, there is nonetheless a contraction of 7.7% in their earnings relative to the pre-lockdown level. However, the worry of a different lockdown can devastate the momentum of this recovery. Besides, if the migrants determine to return to their native spot, their household earnings will once again drop by as substantially as by more than 80%, as it occurred just after the initial lockdown.
Interestingly, the study also finds out that even though some relief and welfare measures announced by the Centre and state governments did attain the migrants, a lot of other measures bypassed them. For instance, survey showed that nearly 74% migrants had access to some kind of subsidised cereal (rice or wheat) but only 12% got access to subsidised pulses. Moreover, only 7.7% of migrants in their native spot reported getting engaged in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) or any other public work. Further, the demand-driven expertise-education beneath Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana (GKRY) has not reached most of these migrants. For instance, only 1.4% of migrants reported having any ability upgradation or education at the native spot in our survey. These employment schemes, such as GKRY, have either neglected these migrants or migrants did not want to be engaged in MGNREGA work. Notably, a lot of migrant workers reported a fall in the high-quality of meals consumed through the lockdown and post-lockdown compared to the pre-lockdown level.
The examination of the initial wave of Covid infection presents significant policy lessons for the administration of the ongoing second wave. Firstly, we need to have to digitise all the information on migrants to formulate any action-program in case a different mass exodus begins. This wants to be backed by a periodic database on migrant workers, say, updated every single 5 years, for any meaningful policy and action-program based on this information.
Second, the portability of entitlements and social security nets wants to be prioritised, be it meals with ‘One-nation, one-ration card’ with an choice to get money or grain in type, or wellness insurance coverage and therapy at any spot, and a universal social protection programme for the vulnerable sections against such a pandemic.
Third, the scale of permissible work beneath MGNREGA could be broadened to absorb the wide variety of skilled and unskilled migrants. A nearby digital platform can be developed at the Gram Panchayat level to register and connect the migrant workers and employers so that they get an chance to work closer to their house. The ability mapping of the migrants could be performed by means of this portal at Gram Panchayat or block-level to provide employment on a demand-driven basis beneath GKRY. The eastern states also need to have a enormous reconstruction programme-like Roosevelt’s New Deal through the Great Depression in the US, to create infrastructure, agricultural markets and rural housing, alleviating distress migration in the medium to lengthy run. Lastly, amid the increasing situations, vaccine production wants to be ramped up to inoculate the most vulnerable population.
However, there remains a major query on the table: With our political and religious leaders flouting all norms of Covid-suitable-behaviour through election rallies and religious congregations, how can we bring discipline amongst basic public? The moral credibility of our leaders to impose lockdowns has certainly eroded. India could have to spend a heavy cost for this, surpassing Brazil and the US in quantity of Covid situations in the coming months. A sad story certainly.
Gulati is Infosys Chair professor for agriculture, and Jose is investigation fellow, ICRIER. Singh is CEO, ISSRF