Lessons Learnt From The Migrant Crisis Of 2020

As we officially move forward in 2023 in a post-covid world, India is aspiring to build back what was lost over the past three years. This year’s economic survey is optimistic about India’s growth in the coming years and believes that the policies and programs adopted in the last few years will shortly display their impact. There also has been a deeper focus on issues related to migration, considering the internal migration crisis that was observed in the country after the announcement of the first 21-day-long lockdown on 24 March 2020. The lack of preparedness of the authorities and the limited time available to take effective actions was blatantly visible as thousands of migrants took to the streets while all possible mobility routes were shut. The sudden closure of commercial activities and workplaces rendered millions of migrant workers jobless. Those that depended on daily wages were particularly vulnerable as the extended lockdown drained all their resources.

The “shramik special” trains for migrants who wanted to return to their villages and government schemes to provide ration for those stuck in cities were some of the immediate relief actions. The lockdown and the unprecedented situations presented by the pandemic were challenging for even the privileged and economically sound individuals, thus one can only imagine the vulnerability and desperation experienced by the migrants who were struggling to reach their home states. However, migrants were increasingly targeted during the pandemic as possible carriers of the virus, adding to the challenges they were already facing. Many were arrested in violation of the lockdown and many died due to exhaustion from the return journey to their villages.

Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar stated in Parliament in September 2020, that the data collected from the state government revealed an estimated 10 million migrants had tried returning to their villages during the pandemic. However, there is no official database that recorded the migrants who were rendered unemployed or faced wage theft. Data from private organisations like Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has estimated a total of 122 million job losses in the month of April 2020 alone. 

As we mark the third anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown in India, the country seems to have evolved with regard to its approach toward migrants in the country. The 2011 census revealed a 45 percent increase (450 million) in the number of internal migrants as compared to the 2001 census data. My own estimates put 600 million internal migrants in 2021. The massive number of migrants within the country and the problems they face were brought out visually by the pandemic. According to the latest data produced by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation in June 2022, all-India migration rate was 28.9 per cent for July 2020-June 2021, with a 26.5 per cent migration rate in rural areas and 34.9 per cent in urban areas. 

Although the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) was introduced before the pandemic as inter-state portability of ration cards in four states in 2019, the limitations of domicile-focused schemes were addressed through this move. ONORC most definitely helped migrants gain food security and has covered almost 80 crore beneficiaries. The Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) initiated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched in 2020 in the wake of covid-19 crisis to aid migrants in urban spaces to access dignified rental housing close to their workplaces are also receiving acceptance and active involvement from various migrants receiving states. Another important offshoot of the pandemic-led crisis was the E-shram portal started in August 2021. Aimed at building a national database of unorganized workers, seeded with an individual’s Aadhaar can help them avail various social schemes. As of January  2023, 285.5 million workers were issued E-Shram cards according to the Minister of State for labour and Employment. 

The Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan launched in 2020 was mostly a one-time scheme for providing employment to migrants who returned to their villages. The 2021 draft national migration policy prepared by the NITI Aayog, sheds light on many nuances of a migrant’s life. With a focus on cash transfers, quotas and reservations the draft policy is looking toward uplifting and empowering the migrant community. Rising minimum wages, creation of a central database, migration resource centres and extension of the Right to Education to children of migrants are some of the recommendations of this draft policy.  

However, accessible credit facilities, employment opportunities in rural areas, and actions towards stabilizing the informal sector employing millions of migrants still remain challenges to be addressed. The ‘migration in India’ 2020-21 report by the National Statistical Office using the Periodic labour force survey reported that 51.6 percent of rural migrants migrated from the urban areas due to the pandemic and the lockdown. Considering the stagnant employment in the manufacturing sector, the higher proportion of rural-to-rural migration and overdependency on agriculture for employment, it is unclear why the government would cut down on its budgetary allocation to MGNREGA in this year’s budget.  

As the whole of the country is returning to normalcy, so are the migrants. The return of the migrants to the cities during the unlock phase ensured the revival of the informal sector jobs in these places. Having understood the challenges faced by the migrants during the pandemic, both the central and state government could work towards the creation of basic facilities and infrastructure for migrants returning to the cities. It is disheartening to see that prejudice towards migrants as ‘outsiders’ prevails, migrant exodus from Tamil Nadu is a recent example of the same. Migrant lives have seen many changes over the past three years with several new interventions from both the government and civil society organizations. Covid did provide a learning curve for the government to acknowledge the massive presence of migrant workers in the country and the vulnerabilities they face. The push towards more data-driven schemes and programs has gained importance, as was seen in Kerala, wherein the Kerala Migration Survey (KMS) was useful to plan and execute actions pertaining to migrants and their return during covid. The Kerala model of migration surveys were replicated already in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Gujarat and Goa. Similar studies are currently being carried out in other migrant-sending states like Odisha, and Jharkhand and will most definitely add to authentic data sets that can be tapped into in the future to better maneuver issues of migrants in India. Instead of Blanket responses to migrants' hardships, tailor-made policies conscious of migrants' classification and socioeconomic demographics will ensure a change in migration governance in the country. 

(Co-authored by Dr Irudaya Rajan, Chairman, International Institute of Migration and Development and Varsha Joshi, Research Fellow. Views expressed in this article are personal.)