Introduction
COVID-19 had an huge impact on migrants. Due to lockdown various factories and workplaces are shut down. Millions of migrants workers had to deal with the loss of income, food shortages and uncertainty about their future. Following this many of them and their families went hungry.
While the social and economic costs of coronavirus lockdowns, travel bans and social distancing initially focused on international migrants, there has been increasing attention paid to the plight of internal migrants .
The world bank has said that India has internal migrants two and a half times that of international migrants. Within India, an estimated 40 million internal migrants workers, largely in the informal economy were severely affected due to Covid-19.
Transportation system mainly being responsible for bad conditions of migrants. Even their villages didn’t allow them to come home due to fear of transmission.
Recent govt labour force survey estimated that more than 71% of people with a regular salary Working in non-agricultural industries with no written job contract.
Worst hit are the daily wage earners as they have no social security and most living in poverty. Living hand to mouth, their loss of livelihoods had led to a lack of money to pay rents or pay for food.
Stranded workers Action Network found that 50% of workers had rations left for less than one day, 74% had less than half their daily wages remaining to survive for the rest of the lockdown period, and 89% had not been paid by their employees at all during the lockdown.
With extended lockdown and risks of further wave of infection, that labour shortages could negatively impact the economy.
Psychosocial issues among migrants in Covid-19 :
Fear of being neglected by the local community and concerns about wellbeing and safety of their families waiting in their native places.
Many of the migrants are stuck at borders including state, district and nation border areas .
COVID-19 has health implication on every present person in this world as its the most dreadful thing of the world right now.
But occupational community of internal migrants have psychological ill effects also. Permutations and combinations of factors viz susceptibility for new viral infections, potential to act as vectors of transmission of infection, high prevalence of pre existing physical health morbidities like tuberculosis, HIV infections, adverse psychological factors like absence of family support and caretaker during the crisis, their to follow the rules, social exclusion etc. In addition to it financial constraints due to lack of work Making migrants highly vulnerable.
Migrant Workmen Act, 1979
The act was enacted to prevent exploitation of inter state migrants workmen by contractors, and to ensure fair and decent conditions of employment.
The lockdown of Covid-19 highlights the urgent need to rationalize the legislative framework for labour in India .
This law requires all establishment hiring inter state migrants to be registered contractors who recruit such workmen be licensed. The full and proper implementation of this law meant that state government had complete details of inter migrant Workmen coming through contractors within their states. While this would still leave out migrants who move across states on their own, a large would be automatically Registered to requirement of the act .
No state had implemented this law. The sole reason for its implementation was to prevent exploitation of migrants. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) drew the attention of Supreme Court to 41 year old law and how its proper implementation could have protected the migrant workers .
Code on Occupational safety, Health and Working Conditions Bill and the code Wages Bill in Lok Sabha
The proposed code would enhance the coverage of workers manifold and also merge 13 central labour law into a single code which would apply to all establishment employing 10 or more workers .
It is applicable to industry trade, business, manufacture or occupation is carried on including IT establishment or establishment of service sector.
The bill faced a lot of opposition because of :
• Clause 22 giving discretionary power to the government to set up safety committee while this is a statutory requirement for every hazardous unit under the Factories act of 1948
• Clause 83 giving state govt power to “ prescribe” maximum permissible limits of workers exposure to chemical and toxic substances, while the ‘second schedule ‘ of the act specifies this
• Clause 125 and 126 giving extensive power to government to make rules for.
MGNREGA :
The lockdown imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus left Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act 2005 workers in the lurch .Thousands such workers facing an economic shutdown having increase in annual guarantee of work to 200 days per person .
The unorganized workforce has been pushed to poverty and millions are facing starvation.
According to section 16(1) of MGNREGA schemes are to be implemented as per recommendation of gram panchayat, Gram Sabha and ward Sabha .But the truth is work is executed according to priorities of the government.
Following are the reforms to effectively strengthen the role that NREGA can play during COVID-19 induced crisis :
• Prioritize individual benefitting schemes.
• Increase the number of work schemes
• Pay workers immediately
• Modify daily work areas
• Increase wages
• Increase guaranteed days of work
• Issue job cards
• Include single women
• Engage civil society
• Strengthen delivery mechanism
Also Read: Right to Equality Article 14 to 18 of the Indian Constitution
