{"id":137209,"date":"2020-06-13T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepubliceconomist.com\/?p=137209"},"modified":"2020-07-15T10:25:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T04:55:29","slug":"crippled-without-crutches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepubliceconomist.com\/?p=137209","title":{"rendered":"Crippled without Crutches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Turning a blind eye to India’s\nmoving labour, now set to leave industries immovable?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A global pandemic that has hitherto affected 6,880,373 and claimed 398,754 lives. <\/strong>
The world economy set to witness a predicted drop in output of 3 percent. <\/strong>
And the world battling to inhibit the former and propel the latter.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\ntoo is now well on its way to curb the CoViD-19 outbreak and concurrently brace\nitself against the coming recession. However, its reprehensible failure to\nsecure a majority of its primary labour force much sooner, has now induced an\nunprecedented risk to both public health and its economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfirst CoViD-19 case in India was reported on 30th January when the World Health\nOrganisation’s situation report had already confirmed 7818 cases worldwide. But\nIndia remained seemingly unaware of the trade-off between the lack of immediate\nsteps to check the virus transmission and long term effects on its economic\ngrowth. Millions were allowed to fly in and out of the country, even when it\nwas already well recognised that international travel had turned an endemic\ninto one of the world’s greatest pandemic. More importantly, no official\nwarnings were issued to the country. Only a few, with access to news on the\nglobal picture and some insight into contagion and casualty trajectories, might\nhave understood the approaching disaster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\nkept emphasising the fact that with respect to many other nations, it had both\na smaller number of cases and a lower degree of local transmission. And\ntherefore for the sake of a much promised promising economic future, an\nimmediate planned lockdown was postponed. The reality of insufficient testing\nkits to identify the actual number of those affected, remained unacknowledged.\nWhen the first national lockdown was announced on March 24th, to be in effect\nwithin 4 hours of the Prime Minister’s address, it seemed that the government\nwas more following the trend for containment than laying the foundations of a\nwell thought out plan of action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncatastrophe being witnessed today has continually confounded policymakers. As\nthe increasing nCoV transmittances forced stop all manufacturing activities and\nservices, a global supply chain disruption together with the demand\ncontraction, accelerated the onset of a severe financial crisis. But developing\ncountries, with growing markets but also their characteristic unreliable\nhealthcare systems, were doubly hit. India is a labour-intensive economy with 93\npercent of its workers self-employed and employed in unorganized sectors, 81\npercent informally employed and a conspicuous 139 million constantly on the\nmove. This massive labour force who form the spine of our economy, live majorly\nwithout any social protection and mostly on sustenance income. The lockdown hit\nthem hardest with the triad of abrupt unemployment, an incomprehensible\ncontagion and cramped urban slums with no place for essential physical\ndistancing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nworkers who had not been able or known to board the last trains, after the\nPrime Minister’s announcement, found themselves completely stranded. After a\nfew more days of uncertain transportation, migrant labourers flocked to major\ntrain and bus terminals in hope of getting home only to find nothing running\nand getting flogged by the police. Some migrants boarded buses already\noverflowing with passengers while others started walking to get back to their\nown states; along river banks, wilderness and through unused railway tunnels\nbefore they could know that state borders had been sealed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nof our migrant labour come from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal\nand work in metropolitans like Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat. After the shutdown,\nwith little or no guarantee of even basic amenities such as food and water,\nthey had to either stay back in hope of help from aid groups or keep walking to\nreach home. And all the while chances of increasing transmission of Covid-19\nloomed over, either due to lack of sanitation on roads, no personal distancing\nin transports or no space for social distancing in overcrowded slums.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngovernment should have realised the chain effect of a lockdown on sectors like\nmanufacturing and construction, most vulnerable to economic fluctuations, and\nusing the majority of the unskilled, semi-skilled, contractual and migratory\nlabourers. A more farsighted view would have made it clear that however long\nthe stretch of the virus outbreak, the economy would have to pull back up. And\nthat not being possible without these very labourers, industries could have\nbeen re-opened with workers in full protective gear, working in shifts, thereby\nneither disregarding the necessary social distancing measures nor the workers’\nright to mere sustenance. The MSMEs could not be expected to take\nresponsibility for their workers in the absence of legal consequences and\nunforeseeable demand. But steps could have been taken to make workers stay back\nwith a combination of basic amenities, credit by employers and making urban\nslums a priority for continual CoViD-19 checks and spreading awareness about\nits effects and protection against it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather,\non 29th March, the home ministry made a perfunctory declaration that it was now\ncompulsory for salaries and wages to be paid even during the lockdown. The\nresult? Surveys in Tamil Nadu found 63 percent labourers without wages since\nbefore the lockdown. A rapid survey in Gurugram stated that 25 percent of\nworkers in May and 75 percent in April did not get paid. In Gujarat, the\ndiamond industry, which employs nearly 1.5 million workers and all of them\nmigrants, has not been paying them despite government orders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nno focused or effective action from the central government, workers found their\nlife situation worsening as the abrupt India Lockdown 1.0 was followed by\nceaseless extensions leaving millions without income, soon followed by no food,\nshelter and no foreseeable future without savings or access to credit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nMay 1, after a whole month and a half, the government declared the start of\nShramik Special trains to send back labourers to their destinations. And though\nthe nation took a breath of relief, a policy hiccup was plain again. To send\nmigrant labourers back to the very places they had had to move away from in\nsearch of  livelihood could not possibly\nbe a sustainable solution. The country’s rural job landscape could not\naccommodate millions of migrant workers returning home. To make it worse,\nworkers who had been living without the privileges of social distancing or\nsanitation staples and then travelled in groups over long distances were driven\nto rural areas which have even more inferior healthcare systems. This had the\nutmost possibility of endangering those back in villages and make tracking even\nharder as they spread far and wide. The states who had domiciles returning,\nfirst declared that all returnees would be sent into institutional quarantine\nto check contagion which later had to be changed to 14 days of home quarantine\ndue to lack of capacity. But observation of home quarantine is not of much\nassurance when there is little awareness and a greater need to earn and feed\nfamilies.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ntotal of 200 Shramik Special trains, ferrying labourers from arrived in the\nstate of Jharkhand till the 22nd of May. With them, those trudging long roads\nto come back home are trickling in too. Approximately 3 lakh returnees and\namongst them only 19,686 tested to date, a mere 6.6 percent with 147 already\ndetected positive. Malda district in West Bengal, formerly a green zone has had\na rising number of CoViD-19 positive cases since the arrival of migrants while\nall those infected in South Dinajpur are those that returned. In Uttar Pradesh,\nwhere over 20 lakh workers have come back so far, 20 percent of 245 samples\ntested positive belonged to migrants in Barabanki while in Basti all 50 new\ncases were of migrant workers. Bihar, where around 7 lakh migrants have come\nback in May, 560 were tested positive, and the state has shown the biggest rise\nsince the influx. And the trend goes on and is predicted to spread exponentially\nas labourers still on their way back, finally return. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nheavy losses weighing industrial houses down, authorities have permitted\nre-opening of factories now, with safety regulations in place, in orange and\ngreen zones along with rural factories. But even when demand can be hoped to\nslowly return, workers are no more available, resulting in contraction of\nindustrial production and therefore future supply. Since most companies that\nuse informal labour are operated through a chain of contractors and sub-contractors\ndown the line, information asymmetry between principal employers and workers is\nescalating the bottleneck. But the absolute dependence on migrant workers is\nnow making industries and state governments trying to bring back or retain\nworkers. The diamond polishing and cutting industries in Gujarat are planning\nto send batches of rough diamonds to local factories near migrant villages once\nglobal markets open and exports revive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise,\nthe option remains to train locals in jobs that take years to get skilled in.\nTimely decisions not taken and the epic lack of foresight has now left workers\ntraumatised and impecunious and employers in quandary. But it has also put a\ntoll on an economy already on its knees with the IMF predicting India’s GDP falling\nto 1.9 percent this year. In addition to costs already to be borne by sectors\nfor fall in demand and production during the lockdown, they will now have to\nbear the cost of acquiring and then training new labourers in their work.\nHowever, a greater cost to the economy is that of human capital as semi-skilled\nor skilled labourers, now back in villages, try to earn at lesser jobs or go\nback to farming and disguised unemployment ensues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ncrisis has bared the picture of workers in the lowest rungs of our economy, who\nhold up crucial sectors and are all but missing when it comes to focused\npolicies and dedicated social infrastructure. The central and state governments\nsure have announced migrant labourer registration measures and migration\ncommissions to regulate hiring, recently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\ncan India get back up on its feet fast enough, without its crutches so\nmindlessly thrown?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This crisis has bared the picture of workers in the lowest rungs of our economy, who hold up crucial sectors and are all but missing when it comes to focused policies and dedicated social infrastructure. The central and state governments sure have announced migrant labourer registration measures and migration commissions to regulate hiring, recently. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":139924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,92],"tags":[302],"class_list":["post-137209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-economy","category-social","tag-labour-issues-during-lockdown"],"yoast_head":"\nCrippled without Crutches - The Public Economist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thepubliceconomist.com\/?p=137209\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crippled without Crutches - The Public Economist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This crisis has bared the picture of workers in the lowest rungs of our economy, who hold up crucial sectors and are all but missing when it comes to focused policies and dedicated social infrastructure. 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