Labour migration is a key policy priority, for migrant workers contribute to 10 per cent of India’s GDP, serving as the backbone of several economic sectors, including construction, textile and apparel, domestic work, fishing and fish processing, mining, and quarrying, and even agriculture. But they are disproportionately excluded from access to social protection, and stable employment, leaving them exposed to poverty, social exclusion and social insecurity, observes Shehnaz Rafique.
Today’s highly globalised world makes labour migration a key policy priority. People migrating for work make important contributions to the growth and economic development. Migrant workers contribute to 10 per cent of India’s GDP, serving as the backbone of several economic sectors, including construction, textile and apparel, domestic work, fishing and fish processing, mining, and quarrying, and even agriculture.
Labour migration in India primarily takes place within the native state of the migrant from a rural source area to an urban destination. Even within the intra- and interstate, rural-urban differentiation, the profile of the migrant worker varies by nature of job, sector of employment, destination, distance from native place, type of engagement of labour and a host of other determinants.
Migrants are disproportionately excluded from access to social protection, and at the same time more likely to be concentrated in low-paid, precarious and informal work, leaving them especially exposed to poverty, social exclusion and social insecurity.
Covid-19 has highlighted the flaws of institutional structure and deepened the precarity and informality and literally dislocated the migrant population. It has raised serious concerns about exacerbating existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. In India, the major drivers of both internal and international migration are the prevailing unemployment, competitive labour market and enhanced livelihood prospects in the destination state or country. However, the nationwide lockdown and the sealing of inter-state and international borders to control the Covid-19 pandemic triggered the reverse migration of informal migrant workers.
The key drivers of migration are uneven growth and urbanisation, the agrarian crisis in India, with reduction in days of available farm work and reduced public investment in the primary sector, enhanced access to road and rail networks.Communication channels and information about availability of work have also given a boost to migration.
Migration also occurs in pursuit of better livelihoods and socio-economic mobility, resultant decline in real earnings, lower consumption by the rural poor and growing landlessness.These factors leave people with limited choice but to migrate for livelihoods. Among the workers who make temporary moves within India, there is an over representation of Adivasis, Dalits, religious minorities, the poor, the less educated, the landless, those from rural areas and those who were engaged in agriculture in their source region.
Another major issue that calls for special attention is the well-being of women and children among the migrants. Women should be provided with adequate services for maintaining reproductive health, maternal health, postnatal care, paediatric care and preventive/ remedial measures for dealing with domestic or sexual abuse.
Migrant workers face unique challenges due to their high levels of mobility, as they are unable to settle in their work destinations, therefore falling outside the state’s purview in both their source and their destination regions. They also include economically vulnerable and socially marginalised populations, including women and children, who are absorbed into highly informal, invisible and exploitative work arrangements at the lowest ends of labour markets.
Another major issue is their mode of travelling. Railways not only function as a mode of transport but also creates huge employment opportunities both in the formal and informal sectors. It provides low fare transportation to agricultural and industrial trade. But privatisation of Indian railways has definitely affected the Indian economy at large. Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown had witnessed around 60,000 migrant workers out in the open, literally in cities and towns across the country in distressed conditions, trying to return to their hometowns. The entire social media was shaken to see an empty freight train crushing 16 migrant workers in Maharashtra, who had fallen asleep on the railway track after covering miles on foot in desperate shape.
Yet recently we witnessed the most tragic train accident where hundreds were killed in the triple-train collision near Odisha’s Balasore on June 2, 2023. Most of the victims of the accident involving three trains in Balasore district were migrant labourers from West Bengal, who were either heading to southern India to resume work or were travelling in search of jobs. This leaves us with grave questions on the status of passengers’ safety, sheer negligence of Railways, poverty and unemployment.
Over the last two decades the districts of low development in West Bengal have witnessed workers migrating to Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The 2011 Census also shows this, the reason being lack of opportunities, drastic climate change and poor agriculture. The poor, underprivileged and marginalised, mostly landless people/ workers, have no choice but to choose between starvation and work stability for themselves. Had there been enough jobs available for these informal, migrant workers in West Bengal, these workers would not have travelled outside the state in search of employment and, therefore, would not have faced the fatal accident.
The Balasore tragedy raises a big questionmark not only on safety in railways, overcrowded general compartments, hike in railway fares but also on the State and Union Governments that seriously fail to provide good means of transport and lacks seriously in providing economic opportunities to prevent internal migration.