COVID-19 Lockdown: National Strategy for Migrant Workers

Due to lockdown, migrant workers are stranded at different places. On Wednesday, the Union home ministry issued fresh guidelines for interstate movement to allow stranded migrant labourers to return to their homes.

Hyderabad:The United States is paying a heavy price by way of ten lakhs positive cases and more than 55 thousand deaths so far for its failure in assessing the devastation by the Coronavirus pandemic and not taking proper preventive measures.

By prudently assessing the intensity of the looming disaster the government of India imposed a lockdown for 40 days and asked 130 crore population to stay at home. Except for emergency services, everything has come to a standstill and the life of the migrant workers who survive on daily wages has become miserable. Lakhs of workers who left behind their villages and families and migrated to different states in search of livelihood are caught up in the vicious circle of loss of employment. Their condition is heart-rending.

In the early days of lockdown declaration, UP, Bihar and Rajasthan governments operated buses to bring back migrant workers to their hometowns. Many state governments that postponed transportation of their migrant workers because of the lockdown guidelines have now stated that they are willing to bring their workers back as soon as the lockdown ends.

The Union Home Ministry has recently allowed 3,800 Sikh pilgrims stranded in Nanded to be taken to their hometowns. Hence, the Maharashtra government has announced that it is ready to allow over 3.5 lakh migrant workers from UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh to go back to their states.

UP and Madhya Pradesh have assured that arrangements will be made to bring back the migrants.

However, the warnings that repatriation of millions of migrant labourers from states that are heavily infected by the virus will increase the risk of a new crisis- a warning that cannot be ignored.

But, the tragedy of migrant workers should be viewed as a national problem and a comprehensive solution must be found.

Four days ago, the World Bank reported that there are over four crore migrant workers across India who are experiencing the negative impact of the lockdown.

According to the Economic Survey 2016-17, the remittances made by labourers to their homes are Rs 1.5 lakh crores annually.

Though the central state governments are trying to help the migrant workers, the outcry of the sufferers is that they are more likely to die from hunger than from COVID-19, which reflects the harsh reality at the ground level!.

The central government proposed to collect all the details of the workers in the unorganized sector online and ensured other benefits in addition to the transfer of cash.

The Centre wanted to ensure suitable employment to the 22 million migrant labourers housed in the camps in nearby industries by identifying their skills. However, since the information available on record did not contain information about the skill-sets of the labourers, nothing could be done.

Under these circumstances, the Odisha government declared that those migrant workers who want to come back must necessarily register their particulars through a web portal and once the process is completed, the government will take appropriate decision. UP has already decided that it will focus on employment for 15 million migrant workers in the next few weeks.

But, with lives and livelihood at stake, a comprehensive national strategy is imperative in this respect!