Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has shaken the fundamental fabric of human existence on this planet. It has proved to be one of the deadliest pandemics in the history of humankind. It has affected almost every country in this world, including Latin America, which had till now escaped the horrors of both the world wars. There is no means of controlling the rapidly spreading outbreak, and countries grappled with fighting it by employing measures like safe distancing, lockdowns, public awareness, and education to enable social responsibility and necessary hygiene measures. In India, the diverse landscape presents its own set of challenges, and the worst affected are the daily wage workers – the informal sector or the unorganized category. The countrywide lockdown has left the workers unemployed, starved, homeless and stranded at the crossroads of inter-state politics with no means of transportation to travel back home. This report is a study of the various hardships – both social and economic, faced by the migrant workers due to the nation-wide lockdown, the multiple steps taken by the Central and State Governments, and the road ahead.

India's labor market

India has around 100 million migrant workers, which accounts for 20% of the workforce. The majority of the migrant workers are employed in manufacturing, construction, retail, wholesale godowns, transport, communication sectors, domestic helpers, street vendors, etc. (see Appendix 2). Many of these migrant workers either reside in the construction sheds, factory dormitories, or rented jhuggis, bastis. The influx of laborers is mostly from the State of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh. The primary reason for the migration is the economic diversification across the country, aspiration for economic empowerment due to increased productivity and earning potential to remit the money back home to support a large family. Most of the migrant laborers have more than three children, which increases the household burden manifold. The illiteracy of the migrant workers further adds to their unemployment woes, and they do not get ample opportunities in their native State. The primary requirement of the workers has found to be the Building & Construction industry, followed by Retail, Transportation & Logistics, and beauty & Wellness (see appendix 3). Maharashtra is the leading State with up to 15.2 million human resource requirements, followed by Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh (see appendix 3).

As per the Socio-Economic & Caste Census 2011, 73 percent of the households in the country are still in rural areas. In other words, out of a total of 24.39 crore households, 17.91 crores are in rural areas. Out of these, 51 percent of households survive on income from manual casual labor, 30 percent from cultivation, and rest from other sources. Nearly 74 percent of rural households have a monthly income less than Rs.5000. To add to this, the education profile of the rural household shows that 35.73 percent were illiterate, and about 67 percent have education below or unto primary.

The focus on skill development emerged for the first time in the Eleventh Five year plan with the initiation of Coordinated Action on Skill Development and formulation of a national policy on skill development in 2009, with a vision to skill, re-skill and up-skill 500 million-strong labor force by 2022. The States also set up the State Skill Development Missions, and a large number of schemes were initiated. The systemic reforms such as developing a unified National Skill Qualification Framework, National Occupation Standards, setting up Labor Market Information system, etc. were undertaken to make skill aspirational by facilitating linkage between general education and vocational education. The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) was also set up in 2009 under Section 25 of Companies Act, 1956, for catalyzing the private sector participation in skill development. So far, more than 5 million people have been trained by its 211 training Partners (3026 training centers) and 37 Sector Skill Councils. NSDC is working with 21 universities for alignment of education and training to NSQF.

Despite these efforts, skill is yet to become aspirational among youth. The pathway to career growth through skill development is yet to strike among the unemployed/underemployed. Training Institutes such as the ITIs continue to be under-utilized, lack of trainers, inadequate training facilities in nearby villages, and small towns persist. The skill development efforts remained fragmented and in silos.

Factors leading to migration

The various factors leading to migration can be classified into social, economic, and psychological factors:

Social – The urbanization and rapid development of cities providing better opportunities (80%), improved civic amenities (79%), poverty (87%) were found to be the major social factors for migration. This uneven development of rural and urban India is a long-standing problem, and all attempts by the Government's economic revival package have not been able to mitigate this difference to date.

Economical – Due to a lack of opportunities and earning potential in the native State, workers migrate in a dream of better economic status in life. As per our survey of hundred laborers, we found that 95% of them have migrated to earn more money in cities where they get paid more for the same job in comparison to what they earn back home. Factors like unemployment (63%), environmental factors like drought or crop failure (21%), debt-ridden (41%) are some of the primary economic factors for the migration.

Psychological – The migrant workers have high aspirations (79%), many of them were from general caste who do not want to do the menial jobs in the native place due to the social stigma attached (38%), and were already leading a poor life (94%) due to which they migrate to cities in other states in search of work.

Further, the workers can be classified into seasonal and permanent workers. The seasonal migrants form a major chunk of the informal sector in the cities and usually are employed in low-paying jobs such as construction, domestic work, manufacturing, textile, hotel, etc. Many of these seasonal workers start off at an early age and therefore are unskilled and poorly paid. They are stuck in the same job pool for almost all their work-life due to no upward mobility. With a lack of access to proper health services, when sick, they rush back to their native towns or villages for an extended period till recovery. Most of the workers we interviewed were between 20-45 years age.

India locked down

The Indian Penal Code, 1860, contains provisions on public health and safety to deal with disobedience to quarantine rule [271] as well as provisions for offenses affecting the public health and safety [chapter XIV]. The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, empowers the Government to take special measures and prescribe regulations to contain dangerous epidemic diseases such as swine flu, dengue, Covid-19 in India. In the current Covid-19 context, the Indian Government has also invoked The Disaster Management Act, 2005, that states that the National Authority shall have the responsibility for laying down the policies, plans, and guidelines for disaster management for ensuring a timely and effective response to the disaster.

Clearly the nation-wide lockdown, w.e.f. March 25, 2020, to April 14, 2020, as a preventive strategy for Covid-19 overlooked the impact on the migrant workers. The pandemic has highlighted migrant workers as a vulnerable occupational group that caused a loss of livelihood, shelter, food, and health. The workers were left stranded without any means of transportation back home. For them, the fear of starvation overpowers the fear of the COVID-19 virus.

The apathy of the Central and State Governments towards the laborer's plight is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of the bottom rung in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs in the face of any natural or unnatural calamities. The vulnerability of these sectors to the nation-wide lockdown has resulted in an unprecedented panic and apprehension about their survival, as many of the migrant workers decided to walk back home. Ideally, matters related to inadequate food, health, and housing of vulnerable migrant workers need to be addressed before a pandemic. States that received most migrants also saw most road accidents. Many died en-route due to starvation, dehydration, or accidents. Their blistered feet and helpless faces are a slap to the world's largest democracy, and ironical that the same Government that spent billions in various space programs to reach Mars and Moon is now struggling to send the migrant workers back home. This is a collective failure of the Government and our society as a whole.

Response by the State and Central Governments

• The initial reaction of the State Governments and Union territories is the transportation of migrant workers from the borders to their villages. On March 29, 2020, when the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a circular prohibiting the movement as overcrowded buses are against the very idea of social distancing to contain the spread of the virus. State Governments were directed to stop the migrant workers wherever they are and shift them to nearby shelter homes/relief camps. Twenty-one thousand sixty-four relief camps have been set up for the purpose.

Cons: Too late, too little. By the time the State and Central Governments took cognizance of the issue, lakhs of workers had left to their destination barefoot. Many committed suicides. The media coverage.

• Upset with the plight of the workers, the Supreme Court taking suo moto cognizance of the matter declared to the federal and state governments that the migrant workers, who are stranded across the nation, must be ferried back to their native states within 15 days, while reserving the final order for June 9. 3,840 Shramik trains run since May 1, has transported more than 60 lakh migrant to their home states through 4450 Shramik Special trains.

• Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan launched on June 20, 2020, to tackle the impact of COVID-19 on migrant workers in India. Jobs will be provided to over 6 million migrant workers in six states through Govt. schemes in the next four months. An expenditure of Rs. 50000 crore towards 25 areas of work is declared by the Central Government.

Cons: Rural employment program for migrants but no discussion yet on how to draw migrants back to cities as the economy opens up.

• The Government declared that every migrant worker would be automatically enrolled for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), popularly known as Ayushman Bharat — the Government's flagship health insurance scheme — enabling them to access cashless medical facilities at their workplace. In case a different version of PM-JAY has been implemented by state governments, the migrant workers will have access to those health schemes too.

• The Government has set up a Migrant Workers Welfare Fund under which every migrant worker is automatically enrolled. The fund operates on equal contributions from the worker, employer, home state government, destination state government, and the central administration. The fund will be managed by the labor ministry and will address the requirements of accommodation, health insurance, and unemployment allowance in case a migrant worker shifts a job.

• A National Employment Policy (NEP) is established with a vision of medium to long-term perspective providing a framework for an inter-sectoral strategy for employment and economic growth to enhance the skills and human resource development, including overall labor welfare and labor market governance in the country. The basic contours of the NEP would be categorized into initiatives to enable an environment for setting up of new enterprises and industries, leading to the demand of workers and measures to increase employability and supply of skilled workforce in the labor market system.

• The Government has also suggested confidence-building measures such as scholarships to the children of the migrant workers for their schooling, access to anganwadis, textbooks and school uniforms, water and sanitation measures at their place of stay, ration card portability and recreational activities by their employers.

• The Government has also recommended launching a drive to enroll around two crore construction workers, who are eligible but have not registered in the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act. This will provide pension, social assistance, housing loans education benefits, group insurance, maternity benefits, and skill training to all the workers. The current processes of registration and renewal in the BOCW Act, rules, and guidelines will be simplified, and registration will be done on a mobile app.

• A mechanism for ensuring portability of welfare benefits under BOCW Welfare Boards will also be developed for construction workers who are traveling to other states frequently for work. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 'One Nation One Ration Card' system to enable migrant workers and their family members to access PDS benefits from any Fair Price Shop in the country.

• MGNREGA budget is enhanced by Rs 40,000 crore over and above the Rs 60,000 crore that was allocated earlier in the budget. MGNREGA will give livelihood security to people who are coming back to the villages.

Cons: Most of the above measures are long-term with none of the schemes like 'One Nation One Ration Card' taking off immediately. The need of the moment is immediate cash to the migrant workers to attend their day-to-day needs instead of schemes that will fructify later. The Government could have announced universal PDS entitlement, allowing everyone to pick up ration wherever they are.

Existing Government policies

About twenty Central Ministries/ Departments/ NSDC has been implementing over seventy schemes for skill development. Several new schemes have been started, or existing schemes revamped to expand the outreach of training. Some of these schemes include:

• The placement linked Aajeevika scheme has been renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, which aims to train 10 lakh rural youths by 2017.

• Seekho Aur Kamao (Learn and Earn) scheme launched by the Ministry of Minority Affairs to upgrade the skills of the minority youths in various modern /traditional vocations depending upon their educational qualification, present economic trends, and the market potential, which can earn them suitable employment or make them suitably skilled to go for self-employment.

• The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) in the 12th Plan was restructured as the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) to target the urban poor who are occupationally vulnerable for Employment through Skills Training & Placement (EST&P). The Mission provides assistance for the development/upgrading of the skills of the urban poor so as to enhance their capacity for self-employment and salaried employment.

• The Ministry of Labor & Employment has launched the Apprentice Protsahan Yojana to support the training of one lakh apprentices through MSMEs, in the next two and a half years, by sharing 50% of the stipend. Enhanced rates of stipend have been notified for trade apprentices.

• The scheme for "Enhancement of Skill Development Infrastructure in the Northeastern States & Sikkim" has been revised to include the construction of 22 new ITIs.

• Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through NSDC is implementing a new scheme titled STAR (Standards Training Assessment and Reward) since 2013-14 to motivate a large number of youth to voluntarily join skill development programs; wherein on successful completion of training and obtaining a certificate, every candidate is provided with a monetary reward of an average of Rs. 10,000/-.

• Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, will implement the scheme that will cover fresh training and Recognition of Prior learning of 24 lakh persons. Skill training would be done based on the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF), and industry-led standards. Under the scheme, a monetary reward is to be given to trainees on assessment and certification by Third Party assessment. The average monetary reward would be around Rs.8000 per trainee. Mobilization would be done through skill melas organized at the local level with the participation of the State Governments, Municipal Bodies, Panchayati Rai Institutions, and community-based organizations. The focus under the scheme is also on mentoring support and placement facilitation. The scheme will target the first-time entrants to the labor market and primarily target Class 10 and Class 12 dropouts.

• The Ministry of Human Resource Development through the D/o School Education and Literacy has revamped the scheme of "Vocationalisation of Higher Secondary Education" into "Vocationalisation of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education" incorporating the learnings emerging out from the Haryana pilot project on National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF) and subsuming the revamped scheme into the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). The revamped scheme has introduced Vocational Education from Class IX onwards i.e., at the secondary stage.

• The Ministry of Labor & Employment launched the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to evaluate the skills of construction workers acquired through informal means on pre-determined parameters. Successful workers would be awarded the NCVT certificate. The NSDA has been organizing workshops with varied stakeholders to contextualize and implement RPL in India, especially after its mandate under the NSQF.

• The Government launched the National Action Plan for Skill Training of Persons with Disabilities in March 2015. This National Action Plan is a partnership between the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability for skilling 2.5 million Person with Disability (PwD) over seven years.

• A new scheme, Apprentice Protsahan Yojana, was launched with effect from October 16, 2014, to bring in more number of establishments and youth under apprenticeship and also to encourage the MSME sector to avail the benefits of the apprenticeship training scheme. Under the program, the Government will support one lakh apprentices in the next two and a half years by sharing 50 percent of the prescribed stipend for the first two years of training.

Source: Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (See Appendix 4).

Recommendations

The National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship that was launched on July 15, 2015, with a vision of "Creating an ecosystem of empowerment by skilling on a large scale at speed with high standards and to promote a culture of innovation based entrepreneurship which can generate wealth and employment so as to ensure sustainable livelihoods for all citizens in the country," has failed to achieve its target even after five years of inception. Understanding the complexity of the influx of migrants, the Government policies must be created towards not only harnessing the economic advantages of migration but, at the same time, should also consider reducing their exploitation by the employers.

• The State and Central Governments should compile, maintain, and record the data on migrants as per their demography. Credential verification of the database of migrants along with their address. This is especially necessary for the successful implementation of Pradhan Mantri Dhan Jan Yojna.

• Employers must register migrant workers with the State or Central portal. An annual report of the number of laborers hired or sent away must be maintained and communicated. An employment agreement and advisory should be a mandate for migrant workers to drive accountability.

• Provide social protection and encourage migrant workers to join local trade unions. This would help provide visibility for the migrant workers.

• A regular meeting of the trade union leaders at the grassroots level to sensitize them on the issues faced by migrant workers and encouraging them to spread the message similar to the Panchayati Raj institutions could be developed.

• Migrant workers must be provided training for skill enhancement to effectively participate in the labor market in alignment with the National Skills Qualification Franmework. Public banks, private banks, and other micro-finance institutions with their wide networks can be a catalyst of change by providing loans and introducing programs for their upliftment.

• The possibility of introducing legislation on the Right of Youth to Skill Development to make it mandatory on the part of the State to impart skill training to every eligible youth may be explored. States may be empowered to provide traditional skills meeting local demand vis handicrafts, handloom, wooden work etc., thereby attracting the youth for training and development.

• Incubation centers for micro-enterprises may be set up to provide counseling, direction, and tracking at the village or district level.

• Established private institutions should be provided with incentives for training or other initiatives undertaken for rural upliftment via skill training and development.

• Awareness plays an important role, and the Government should encourage all citizens to promote the various schemes to their domestic help or labor workforce to utilize the schemes effectively.

Conclusion

The disproportionate effect that lockdown had on marginalized communities like loss of employment, food, shelter was petitioned by a prominent lawyer Mr. Alakh Alok for redressal of grievances of the migrant laborer's in different parts of the country. The virtual Supreme Court on 31.3.2020 ruled as under:

"The anxiety and fear of the migrants should be understood by the police and other authorities. As directed by the Union of India, they should deal with the migrants in a humane manner. Considering the situation, we are of the

opinion that the State Governments/Union Territories should endeavor to engage volunteers along with the police to supervise the welfare activities of the migrants. We expect those concerned to appreciate the trepidation of the poor men, women, and children and treat them with kindness."

A sound sustainable strategy involving pundits from different Government and Non-Government institutions to overcome the present frail labor markets needs to be devised that should be inclusive, equitable, and labor-centric – like providing microloans to set up small businesses or creating new jobs as per the current skillset. Plans should be made to reintegrate the laborers returned to their native State as well as those willing to go back to their previous jobs with the necessary upskilling and other skill development programs. Skills for the laborers post COVID-19 world need to be thought of and developed. We should keep in mind that the 100 million laborers are the bread earners of an equal or more than 100 million families. The Government must deliberate upon issues pertaining to jobs and livelihood and work on methods for creating a pool of skilled workforce to complement and strengthen programs such as Make in India. Therefore, an immediate Government action with enough funding is the very least our informal workforce deserves.

Appendix