Open Forum
New
Delhi, 13 May 2020
Migrants, Informal Workers
GOVT MUST PROTECT, OFFER JOBS
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The grave situation emerging from the corona
pandemic that is destined to continue for at least 6-7 months, or even till year-end,
has not been really grasped by our politicians. The upper echelons of society
or even the middle income sections may not be severely affected but the poor
and the struggling masses shall, possibly beyond imagination. More so, because
there are worrying reports that the corona virus may relapse for a second time!
In such a scenario, when our government is finally
trying to bring back migrants to their home States, the question arises what
arrangements would be made to take them back to their place of work? These
migrants are in a pitiable condition, having exhausted whatever money they had
in staying at their place of work for around six weeks without any earnings.
But within a fortnight or even one month they may like to return to their place
of work.
A job crisis is staring the country and this
is manifest in Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report that found
India’s unemployment rate shot up to 23.5% in April. Among large States,
unemployment was highest in Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Jharkhand at 49.8%, 46.6% and
47.1% respectively. The unemployment rate for the week up to May 3 showed that
unemployment rate had risen even further to over 27%, the highest so far. The
estimated loss of employment between March and April 2020 will be 114 million.
“Given that the total count of employment is around 400 million, the loss of
114 million implies that one in every four employed persons lost their jobs”, stated
its CEO, Mahesh Vyas.
Pronob Sen, former chief statistician, stated
recently that the CMIE data was a reflection of what is happening on the
ground. Obviously, the most affected are daily wage earners and those with no
security in the country, casual labourers forming about 25% of the workforce.
Also in the salaried category around 40% do not have job security, implying
that they do not have a valid job contract, are not eligible for paid leave and
do not have social security benefits. According to another five-country survey
by the British research firm, Crosby Textor Group, 86% of those surveyed in the
country are worried about losing their jobs and livelihoods due to the
pandemic.
It is well known that migrant workers, which
include those serving in the informal sector, labour in harsh conditions and
are underpaid but can barely leave their contractor because of indebtedness.
Thus low wages and hazardous environment would make life difficult for this
segment as the pandemic would worsen their plight. There are varying figures of
migrant workers between 51 million, as per the last census, but a more
realistic figure would be around 120 million in the country, including nearly
60 million seasonal short-term migrants not counted by the enumerators.
Delving into the employment scenario, in
agriculture it is distressing to note that 70 million or 48% of all land
holdings are smaller than half hectare in size. The average size of these
holdings is less than a quarter hectare. A family of five cannot survive on
such a small farm even in normal times. Added to this, 42 million or 72% of all
enterprises in the country are owned by a single person. The Periodic Labour
Force Survey (PLFs) found that only 9% of India’s workers are employed in
enterprises with 20 or more workforce. That leaves more than 100 million
workers in either smaller enterprises or agriculture, both of which are
unviable.
Even in normal times, banks do not
necessarily give loan to these small enterprises as they are not cost effective
to assess credit worthiness. According to available statistics, Mudra
disbursements work out to a paltry Rs 49,136 per account by end November 2019.
For a large economy, India is unique in having a large proportion of its
workforce deployed in tiny micro economic units, most of which are struggling
for survival.
This vividly portrays the conditions of the
workforce, mainly the lower segments, which have always been struggling for
survival and the situation has aggravated to uncontrollable dimensions, which
would continue throughout this fiscal. And keeping in view the Centre’s
attitude, which is just encouragement through words but little action and no
financial help to any sector of the economy, the unemployment situation may
aggravate beyond control.
The whole issue boils down to the fact micro
and small units, which could generate maximum employment, have not developed
and even the number in a country like ours is insignificant. Moreover, as India
lacks cutting edge technology and competitiveness, the SME sector could not
dent the export market and improving its performance remains a far cry. Though
people are now talking that many units may relocate from China to India, it is
difficult to believe this as our government cannot offer the necessary
support.
Any tangible action is the need of the day. Several
organisations working on rural employment and about 30 concerned citizens have
written to Rural Development Minister suggesting the 100-day limit be waived to
give willing workers employment for the entire year. They have said that since
large number of villagers lack job cards and getting new job cards can be time
consuming, anyone looking for work under the rural job scheme should be given
employment. Added to this, experts stated that the government should consider
giving 10 days’ wages (Rs 2000 approx) per job card.
On the other hand, labour-intensive units
should be encouraged with money and marketing support. Transfer of the right
technology, whether for small engineering units or chemicals or food processing
units, has to be made available with the government bearing the cost.
Prospective exports units with a potential need to be encouraged. While experts
speak about these and formulate short and medium term plans, only the big
players who have strong links with politicians and political parties derive
benefits.
Given the recent downgrades in GDP estimates
with Japanese investment bank, Nomura (-5.2%) and Goldman Sachs (0.4%)
forecasting the economy to contract in the current fiscal, it is difficult to
believe that jobs of most migrants and informal sector workers would be secure
or safeguarded in the next few months. Even the raising of borrowing limit
would have no effect at the micro level unless the government takes positive
steps in regard to protecting the livelihood of workers after consultations
with acknowledged economists, or else the consequences may be disastrous. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
New Delhi
11 May 2020
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