Covid19 crisis and the miseries of Migrant Labour...

Today the whole world is going through same problem of Covid19 pandemic. The virus spread like a cyclone which ran over whole world within some months.It not only affected developing or poor countries but also developed countries. In fact it mostly affected developed countries like USA, France, Britain,Spain, Italy,etc than any other developing countries. It covered every section of society whether they are rich,poor, middle class, employed, unemployed and of course migrant labour who migrate from there home town to cities and other parts of country where they get some work.

             Today we are observing that throughout India and can be in other countries migrant labour are facing more problems due to lockdown than virus.

If we cosider data of 2018 in India out of about 471.5 million workforce only 12.3% are regular workers and remaining are casual worker who does not have much social security. Most of casual worker are belongs to migrant workers category, who do casual work at construction site,brick kilns, Agriculture, etc.nearly 50% of migrant labour belongs to UP, Bihar, MP, Rajasthan.and the share is gradually increasing as people from these state are abandoning agriculture due less profit.Due to Nationwide lockdown today nearly all casual works are closed and so the migrant worker facing problem of food,water,health due to unavailability of income. 

So only option ahead of them is to go back to their home but going back to home is also not easy as there is also lots of restrictions  on traveling . So lots of workers travel secretly by hiding themselves in tankers, trucks,etc some travel themselves by walking and by cycling towards there hometown. But as we know walking or cycling hundreds of kilometers is not good for health as a result we are seeing some people are dying due to dehydration and some are dying by accidents happening throughout there way. Like in accident happened in Aurangabad where goods train crushed 16 workers walking to there home in MP . Another such accident happened in UP where a couple  died in accident when they are going to there home in Chattisgad on cycle .

          Within migrant labour most of them belongs to STs that is most of them are tribes who lacks in education, health, regular employment, sanitisation, etc. Nearly 45.5% adivasis are below poverty line. On the name of ease of business and opportunities of job tribal lands,forest resources,etc are taken away from them so these tribes face problems to earn livelihood there and they migate to other parts of country to earn some money. Today in the time of lockdown even if these labour came to there home it is very difficult to live there due to unavailability of money.which in turn means unavailability of food, healthcare and other such requirements. Some NGOs and govt also trying to provide them food but except food human being needs other things to live like medicines,cloths,etc.which govt and other institutions can not provide properly. This situation is like " lockdown has caused more suffering to migrant labour than virus"

      To help migrant labour in these situation there is need of providing shelter and food to them where they are working by owners of company and contractors who provided them work. And govt should start gauranteed employment schemes like MGNREGA with proper social distancing otherwise ensure that each labour has proper food and healthcare facilities. There is need of increasing demand base which will ultimately helpful to manufacturing sector also as if consumers have money then they will buy something and then manufacturing sector i.e. producer can sell there product.

         So,there is urgent need to help migrant workers in mission mode as we are trying to get back stranded people outside India to there home through various missions like recent Vande Bharat mission, because if labour survive then our secondary and tertiary sector will survive and ultimately our countries economy...