Migrants Labour and the Lockdown (Pandemic Effect)
Migrants Labour and the Lock down (Pandemic Effect)
Background
According to the timeline issued by the WHO, on 31st December, 2019 china’s province Hubei, Wuhan firstly reported numerous no. of cases related to pneumonia, which later on found as the disease named Covid-19, originated by the virus named SARS- COV 2, that later on converted into pandemic situation, which get out of control with time and even now, this is rapidly increasing. This is the communicable disease, and can only be terminated by avoiding transmission. Due to rapid increase in no. of covid-19 patients founded in the country, government found only one solution that is social distancing, which was firstly executed by the one day lock down, i.e. Janta Curfew on 22nd March, 2020. After successful implementation of Janta curfew, government putted 21 days lock-down from 25th March to 14th April, 2020 and from that, the lock down is still in execution. The lock-down put some of the restrictions over individuals like, Ban on people from moving out their houses, only essential services and soaps are open like of grocery, hospitals, banks etc., All private, commercials, educational, and research institutions should shift on work from home to avoid social interactions, Prohibition on all social gatherings like social, political, religious, cultural, academic, sports etc.
Current Scenario
Based on the 2017’s data of Central Intelligence Agency, there is approximation of 521.9 million labour force in India, which only depends on unorganised sector and this lock down played a role of curse on them. The Ban on all services related to construction, cooking, factories, roadway etc, led all these population with no employment and no wages. These workers are basically, migrants one, who moved various places for their livelihood. All state governments indulge in providing necessity to citizens of their state, that increase the trouble of migrant labour even more, who are not counted as the citizen of that state where they work, this make them move to their native state.
As lock down bans all services, the railways and roadways are not giving their services; the central government has regulations of having pass to move from one destiny to another, all these protocols increase their difficulty of going back to their origins. These criteria leave them with no options other than to move without any vehicle and this is from where actual issues arose. The migrants moving with their necessities on foot only, without knowing the paths, without having foods, without any hope when they will reach, or either they will survive or not. One of the migrant labours moving on foot had the statement,“If we don’t die of the disease, we’ll die of hunger”.
The other issue which hit the migrant labours hard is
the perturbation regarding their daily livelihood. This pandemic leads
unforeseeable decline in economy of the nation, which largely affect the daily
wages workers that make them stay unemployed. Migrant workers generally dependent
on per day wages, from that only, they spend their livelihood, this livelihood
doesn’t allow them to save their wages for future references. Lock down leads
the economic condition in that way, where the sectors couldn’t work, the
factories stopped working, and the industries couldn’t get back to work, people
other than labours have their defined works, they can also work from home, and
they have that amount of money, that can led their live in proper way, without
daily working. But if we give a look on the conditions of labours, they don’t
even have saving to fulfil their necessity. Now, lock-down 4.0 is in force,
From 64 days in approximation, The Washington post, considered this as the
world’s largest lock-down, there are no works, for them, which simply means,
unemployment to them. Now, the conditions fall in that part, where they don’t
even have a single penny, they are fully dependent on the governments for their
necessities.
Conclusion
Realising the hard phase, central and state
government cooperatively working towards them, to make them reach their natives
as soon as possible but this also leads various issues on the labours, as they
don’t have money to buy foods for them, then how can government expect them to
pay for tickets for travelling. On one side of coin, this pandemic is totally
unfamiliar to both government and citizens, they both are trying their best to
overcome this pandemic and on the other side we can’t deny this truth that this
pandemic and lock-down is a curse for migrant labours suffering from this.
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