How Relief And Support Systems Failed Migrant Workers Again -Shubham Kaushal and Vikas Kumar

-IndiaSpend.com

Massive job losses, up to 51% decline in earnings and reduced food intake--migrant workers struggled to survive through the recent lockdown in Gujarat, finds a study. Migrants received no relief during the second wave, and the measures taken in the last lockdown were not adequate, it shows

Ahmedabad: Migrant workers were weeks from running out of food, struggled to access healthcare and faced acute livelihood problems during the partial lockdowns imposed by states to limit the second surge of the Covid-19 pandemic, shows a recent survey conducted by Aajeevika Bureau, a labour rights organisation.

Unlike the migrant crisis of 2020, covered extensively in the media, little attention has been paid to the provision of relief and social protection to migrant workers during state lockdowns, the study found. Since the restrictions this year were partial, some migrant workers chose to return home in the early days of the wave. But many chose to stay back in the hope of a quick revival.

However, the families that chose to stay back in the city struggled to survive, showed Aajeevika's rapid telephonic survey of 195 migrant workers in Ahmedabad conducted in May 2021. Up to 75% of Ahmedabad's migrant workers chose to remain in the city or returned soon after leaving, it found. The city employs over 1.3 million migrant workers and is a popular work destination because of its construction, textiles and pharmaceutical industries, and the domestic work sector.

During Gujarat's partial lockdown, lasting from April 28, 2021 to June 11, 2021, little or no work was available, workers said. Weekly earnings fell by 30%, and 60% of the migrant households interviewed said they were left with cash and dry ration for less than 15 days. Up to 27% of the respondents said they had health problems, including Covid-19 infection. Access to vaccines remains a constant worry too.

The relief measures initiated last year, especially those targeting hunger and employment among migrant workers, do not seem to have alleviated their distress in the ongoing wave either, as we explain later.

In a two-part series, we investigate the problems faced by Ahmedabad's migrant workers who opted to stay back in the city. In this, the first part, we look at how they battled for livelihood and survival. In the second part, we report on how urban health networks, which routinely exclude migrant workers, left them even more vulnerable during the lockdown.

No time to recover from last shock

The latest crisis hit workers at a time when many had not yet recovered from last year's economic shocks that depleted their savings and pushed up their debts. A May 21, 2021 analysis by the Stranded Workers Action Network, a migrant resource group, showed that 58% of migrant families were days from going hungry.

Up to 15 million jobs were lost in May 2021 alone, said a report by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a think-tank. "This is not as bad as the loss of 114 million in April 2020 but it comes second to only that draconian month of a complete nationwide lockdown," CMIE managing director Mahesh Vyas wrote.

In an interview with IndiaSpend, economists Amit Basole and Rosa Abraham of Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) had emphasised the importance of putting in place support systems for migrant workers before the declaration of a lockdown. "The most important lesson from last year was that the lockdown hurt the poorest the most," they stated.

It may not be readily visible yet, but the impacts of deteriorating economic conditions of migrant workers will be felt in the long-term, drastically affecting their life cycle, said Divya Ravindranath, a researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS).

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