MIGRANT LABOUR CRISIS IN INDIA
Author: Raushni Ranjan Pradhan
As we all know the entire nation and whole country is affected by the viral pandemic disease Coronavirus referred to as COVID 19. To tackle things of the pandemic disease the government has announced lockdown so that situation is often handled. As we all know that thousands of migrant workers are walking across India during a desperate plan to reunite with their families in their native places. Many questions are being raised about their welfare and their legal protection for his or her rights.
Those within the field of labour welfare have recalled a 1979 law to manage the utilization and dealing conditions of interstate migrants. On March 31, the centre informed the Supreme Court that there have been no migrant labourers on the roads given the measures governments had adopted to deal with and feed them in various states [1]. The Constitution of India provides a specific labour law for all the labourers of India. Traditionally, Indian governments at federal and state level have sought to make sure a high degree of protection for workers, but in practice, this differs because of sort of government and since labour may be a subject within the concurrent list of the Indian Constitution, within the meantime, the centre has shown alacrity in helping the more prosperous. To bring the labourers back the government has announced a huge mission titled Vande Bharat. There have been sporadic protests by the labourers in cities like Mumbai and Surat. But the migrant labour faces epidemic problems due to this pandemic. The government has started providing proper foods for all the labours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the state to announce a Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus, workers were still taking to the highways in large numbers trying to urge back home. The migrant labour crisis has arisen thanks to the businessman to pay wages during the lockdown. This is often how capitalism of disgrace.
The biggest crisis of labour is due to not paid wages by their employer. In the recent report, it’s been found that nearly 8 out of 10 migrant labourers had not been paid in the least during the lockdown. In most of the western and southern states, labour contractors, factories and little companies washed their hands off migrant labour instantly India went into lockdown. There has been one instance in Gujarat; the diamond industry hasn’t been paying workers despite repeated government orders. The governments and lots of NGOs, middle- class volunteers, political parties and even the police are busy feeding meals to migrant labourers and travel to their homes. All the state government is trying to provide facilities to all the migrant's labourers to go home. India’s labour laws have often been criticized as being too complex, archaic and inflexible.
The Central Government introduced a replacement bill called the occupational safety, Health and dealing conditions in 2018 which aimed to subsume 14 of the prevailing labour laws into one legislation, including the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act, 1979[2]. Migrant workers from the unorganized sectors in India haven’t any information or involvement within the making of this law, their exclusion from it. The legislation must lay down responsibility and accountability measures of state labour departments in jointly creating coordination systems that would answer the situation of crisis like COVID-19. The migrants' workers face tons of problems because they're not getting proper food and shelter to measure. All governments are taking the initiative to supply good food and shelter to laborers so that they will live peacefully.
The governments also are making arrangements for buses and trains, so that they will reach home quickly. Before getting to the provisions of the Act, which could have come to the rescue of these migrants, allow us to take at some data which can also detail that they’re by no means insignificant consistent with the report of 2011 census, India has 5.6 crores interstate migrants, most of who come from the Hindi speaking belt of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The Contractors who lure these migrants, enticing them with the promise of fulfilling their dreams are required under the Act to get a license from an authority both of the state to which the workman belongs (home state) as also the one during which they’re proposed to be used ( host state). The migrant workers who are suffering at the epic of this pandemic, the government should take initiative to regulate the migrant crisis.
India is facing the most important migrant labour crisis in its history but one is going to be hard-pressed to seek out labour. At all time intervals we are witnessing heart-rending visuals of weary migrants painfully trudging along roads people that have been compelled to line out on arduous journeys to succeed to go to their native villages. These migrant workers are contributing towards the event of the state by the sheer sweat of their brow, their labour, therefore the better development of India so India can move towards the goal of becoming a trillion-dollar economy on another hand, these workers have lost their livelihoods abruptly. Their hard-earned money- otherwise remitted to their homes to cater to the requirements to their families. The present crisis also makes us believe the necessity to possess a separate ministry for migrant affairs, handling domestic migrants only.
The migrants' workers work day and night to form globally better India. During this COVID-19 if anybody is suffering these migrants are suffering they’re not at their home, or any native place. The government is taking the initiative that each one of the migrants should be provided by all the facilities. The recent dilution in labour laws has led to a vital shift within the way the plight of the worker – migrants has thus far been understood within the foreground of the COVID-19 induced lockdown. Nearly after the six weeks of lockdown, this was the scene on the road between the Capital of India and the Capital of it’s the most populous state. Migrant workers, dismissed by employers, enjoying no protection from their governments, often thrown out of their accommodation by their landlords, in urgent need of food transport and money, driven by desperation to steer home[3].
As per the conclusion, the important facet of study on population is the study of migration arising out of various social, economic or political reasons. Looking at the country having a large population like India, we need to do better in the fields of migrant. After Partition, India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru regularly visited refugee camps. In one of the camps, a woman once caught hold of his collar and screamed: “what did I get out of independence “. But 72 years later, the migrant workers' crisis has started; they cannot even catch a lowly official or a minister by his collar. Millions of migrant workers, some with wives and children, lost their livelihoods. Some states exhibit higher standards of human values whereas serving migrant employees. Indian migrant employees throughout the pandemic have faced multiple hardships, because of clean up of factories and workplaces, scores of migrant employees had to modify the loss of employment associate in Nursingd shortages wages throughout a depression in their host country, additional therefore than native-born employees. The economist Jean Dreze, who has dedicated his life to the study of poverty and inequality, said on News 18,” The lockdown has been like a death sentence for the underprivileged “.
[1]Available at:https://www.thehindu.com
[2]Available at:timesofindia.indiatimes.com
[3]Available at:https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/India-S-migrant-wprkers-deserve-betterthan-this_opinion/story.