Indian migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic faced multiple hardships. With factories and workplaces shut down due to the lockdown imposed in the country, millions of migrant 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. Thousands of them then began walking back home, with no means of transport due to the lockdown. A study found that 43.3 million interstate migrants returned to their home during the first wave of COVID-19 led lockdowns and out of 43.3 million around 35 million walked home or used unusual means of transportation. In response, the Central and State Governments took various measures to help them, and later arranged transport for them. 198 migrant workers died due to the lockdown, with reasons of road accidents.
Background There are an estimated 139 million migrants in the country, according to the World Economic Forum. The International Labour Organization (ILO) predicted that due to the pandemic and the lockdown, about 400 million workers would be poverty-stricken. Most migrants in the country originate from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, followed by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The cities of Mumbai and Delhi attract the highest number of migrants in India. While most men migrate for work, women migrate due to marriage.
Migrant workers consist majorly of daily-wage labourers working in the manufacturing and construction industries. They are often denied adequate healthcare, nutrition, housing and sanitation, since many of them work in the informal sector. They mostly hail from rural areas but live in cities due to work for most of the year. Many have no savings and stayed in factory dormitories, which were shut due to the lockdown. Additionally, there was no central registry of migrant workers, despite the existence of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979.
According to research published in the Royal Geographical Society, the workers who have been treated the worst are from areas like Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, in which the indigenous population's natural resources were extracted by outsiders. Further, workers paid the least for the hardest work belong to the backward classes, mainly from the Dalit and the Adivasi communities. The research also indicated that the families of the migrant workers supported them by maintaining their houses and taking care of them, either when seasonal work is unavailable or when they are no longer able to work.
Maharashtra has the largest number of migrants, according to the 2011 Census of India. Its state government imposed a lockdown on 20 March 2020 in Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Nagpur, leaving the migrant workers with no work. Due to the lockdown, thousands then gathered at the train and bus stations, seeking transport to their hometowns but with the nationwide lockdown in place, all transport facilities were closed.
Food shortages
According to government reports, there was enough food grain stocked up in the FCI godowns to feed the poor for at least a year-and-a-half. While government schemes ensured that the poor would get additional rations due to the lockdown, the distribution system failed to be effective as the ration cards are area-specific and fair price shops were largely inaccessible. Additionally, the 'One Nation, One Ration Card' system has been implemented in very few states, as of mid April. While the scheme allowed migrant workers to retrieve foodgrains for free anywhere across the country, very few were aware of the scheme. In addition to this, the scheme also required biometric authentication, which was discontinued due to fears of spreading the virus through common fingerprint sensors. In Telangana, many could not avail the ration due to a lack of Aadhaar cards. As such, many were left without food and money due to the lockdown. A survey published by ‘The Hindu’ states that 96% migrant workers did not get rations from the government, and 90% of them did not receive wages during the lockdown.
Exodus On 14 September 2020, Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar stated in Parliament that information collected from state governments indicated an estimated 10 million migrants had attempted to return home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown. He later stated in Parliament on 15 September 2020 that no data was maintained on the number of migrants in the country who had either died, or become unemployed, as a result of the pandemic.
With no work and no money, and lockdown restrictions putting a stop to public transport, thousands of migrant workers were seen walking or bicycling hundreds of kilometres (or even more than a thousand kilometres) to go back to their native villages, some with their families. Many did so while hungry. Social distancing was not possible for these migrants since they travelled together in large groups. According to some of them, they would rather die from the virus at their own village than starve because of no work in the city.
Many were arrested for violating the lockdown, after being caught at inter-state borders, forests between states and even on boats to cross rivers. Some of the migrants died of exhaustion. Others died in accidents on the roads after walking or hiding in vehicles. On 31 March, as many as 120 migrant workers were allegedly beaten up by the police in Gujarat and forcefully rounded up in a single lorry and dropped in Maharashtra, despite being wounded. In Aurangabad, 16 migrants were killed on 8 May after a freight train ran over them while they were sleeping on the tracks, exhausted from walking. 26 migrants were killed in an accident between two trucks carrying migrants in Auraiya on 16 May. Later in May, a 15-year-old girl carried her ailing father on a bicycle for from Bihar to Gurugram over the course of a week. She was later approached to try out for the National Cycling Academy by the Cycling Federation of India.
Later in May, despite the launching of special trains and buses by the government, the migrant workers chose to either travel together in large groups in the cargo compartments of trucks and containers, or travel by foot. They did not wait or their turn to board the government-arranged transport, mainly due to starvation. Additionally, they felt that going back to their hometowns, they could return to farming and take up small jobs under the MGNREGA. The consumption of mobile and broadband data under BharatNet more than doubled in rural areas.
In September 2020, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai stated that the exodus of migrant workers had been caused by "panic created by fake news regarding the duration of lockdown."
Reverse exodus Despite government promises and schemes to generate employment in rural areas, some migrant workers began going back to the cities due to lack of employment in their hometowns, as lockdown restrictions were reduced as part of Unlock 1.0 in June. A large number of these were returning to Mumbai. The reopening of the regular services of the railways also helped facilitate this. The cities, too, reported major shortages of labour, especially in the construction industry. A study conducted in April–May stated that 77% migrant workers were prepared to return to cities for work. The return of the migrants to cities is expected to help revive the economy, which had sustained an impact. Some employers sponsored the travel of migrants back to their workplaces. This included taxis, trains and even flights.
Government response Directives On 27 March, the Home Ministry ordered the states to ensure that migrants would not move during the lockdown, permitting the states to use the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for providing food and shelter to the migrants on 28 March.
On 29 March, the government issued sweeping orders directing that the landlords should not demand rent during the period of the lockdown and that employers should pay wages without deduction. It also announced that those who violated the lockdown were to be sent to government-run quarantine facilities for 14 days, and that it had asked state governments to set up immediate relief camps for the migrant workers returning to their native states. However, the order regarding payment of wages was withdrawn in the guidelines for the lockdown extension issued on 17 May.
On 16 May, the government announced the National Migrant Information System (NMIS), an online database created by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). This was to help streamline the movement of the migrant workers. It will help states find the current number of stranded migrant workers and their location. The government planned to keep the workers updated by feeding their phone numbers in the system.
On 14 July, the Ministry of Human Resource Development requested the state governments to create a database of children in rural areas who have migrated.
Relief camps Soon after the central government directive in late March, state governments set up thousands of camps to house lakhs of migrants and stop the exodus. Delhi government provided free food to 4lakh people every day, as of late March. Over 500 hunger relief centres were set up by the Delhi government. By 5 April 75lakh people were being provided food across the country in food camps run by the government and NGOs. As of 12 April, 37,978 relief camps and 26,225 food camps had been set up.
To cater to the needs of the migrants and prevent them from leaving the camps, the government of Kerala changed the food being provided by adding north Indian dishes to the menu, providing carrom boards and recharge facilities for phones, as well as provide other medical essentials such as masks, sanitizers, and medicines.
Transport arrangements As of 28 May 9.1 million migrants had travelled back home in government-arranged transport facilities. However, according to the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), migrants were confused about the exact procedures to register themselves for travel. Additionally, many state registration portals were either in English or the local language of the states they lived in, which very few migrants could understand. Further, general lack of information from the government to the migrants had resulted in them paying large sums of money to register themselves.
Buses In late March, the Uttar Pradesh government decided to arrange buses at Delhi's Anand Vihar bus station to take the migrants back to their villages for free. Large crowds then gathered at the bus station. However, with the extension of the lockdown, many remained stranded till the last week of April, when the state governments were permitted by the central government to operate buses, but not trains. As of 23 May 4 million migrants had travelled to their homes by buses. Condition in the buses is generally poor, with social distancing being impossible due to overcrowding and higher fares being charged than promised.
Shramik Special trains