FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Zothan Mawii & Iona Eckstein
igrant workers around the country are perhaps the worst affected by the lockdown. Goa was no different. In partnership with the Goa Humanitarian Helpline and other civil society organisations, we conducted a survey to understand the plight of migrant workers in Goa - whether they have received any assistance from authorities, how they were impacted by the lockdown, and their future aspirations. Our findings were startling, though they also chimed with many of the studies on the impact of the lockdown on migrant workers in other states.
A key finding of our survey was that most of the relief that was provided to migrant workers, whether in the form of rations or monetary assistance, was led by civil society organisations, not government authorities. 70 per cent of respondents had received food packets from volunteer groups, not state authorities. Although the central government instructed all factories and businesses to pay workers, most workers were not paid their dues in the absence of enforcement measures. 89 per cent of respondents had lost their income since the lockdown although they had not been formally terminated from their jobs. 20 per cent of respondents reported that they had to borrow money to make ends meet.
Many were not eligible for the state government relief packages because they did not have ration cards for Goa. As a result, they were left out of the public distribution system (PDS), which has been the most reliable source of relief during this lockdown. Central government schemes announced under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) also did not reach migrant workers for various reasons.
The first reason was poor communication and information dissemination from the government. At 91 per cent, an overwhelming majority of workers reported that they had not received any helpful information from the Goa government regarding the lockdown, its impact on their rights as workers or access to rights and entitlements, nor had they received communication regarding government relief measures. Second, many migrant workers did not have the documents or were not already enrolled in the schemes required to be eligible for relief from PMGKY.
The central government’s relief measures include cash transfers to female holders of Jan Dhan bank accounts and senior citizens, and free LPG cylinders under the Ujjwala Scheme. However, of the migrant workers surveyed, only 21 per cent had a Jan Dhan account, or a household member who did. Of the minority who did have a Jan Dhan account, only 40 per cent received the INR 500 cash transfer from the national government.
A similar survey conducted by Azim Premji University found that PDS penetration during this time has been much higher than the PMGKY. The government must widen the scope of PDS to enable workers to access them even when they move across state lines.
The majority of workers we surveyed were in the hospitality sector followed by construction. A little over 70 per cent of respondents stated that they would return to Goa for work after the lockdown and an equal number responded that they would stay if there was a job guarantee program with assured wages in place.
As the lockdown eases, the government will move towards restarting economic activity. But there is a danger that the government, keen to prioritize economic recovery, will overlook concerns around labour welfare. The Goa government has already extended daily work hours to 12 hrs and weekly work hours to 60 hrs in an amendment to the Factories Act, 1948.
The aftermath of COVID-19 on the economy will be long-lasting and the road to recovery will be long. However, labour welfare and environmental concerns should not be sacrificed for speedy economic recovery. The government has indicated plans to re-start mining and other large-scale construction projects in the state to address the state’s income deficit. However, the environmental cost of these projects are high and pose a risk to biodiversity in the state.
Goa must use this as an opportunity to build back better, to find meaningful and decent employment opportunities for the migrant workers in the state. Many industries are in fact dependent on migrant labour. The government has expressed concerns around Goa’s reliance on other states for food supplies. Organic and sustainable farming practices can be introduced compliant with fair trade principles and respecting high environmental and labour standards. Equally, the tourism industry, which has been suffering even before the pandemic, could move towards ecotourism complying with international standards to preserve biodiversity and recover its market share of the tourism industry. The United Nations’ new framework for recovery prioritises social protection, green economy, and digital disruption. Such principles must guide Goa’s recovery, with a strong commitment to protecting the weakest and most vulnerable sections of Goan society, including migrants.
(Zothan Mawii and Iona Eckstein are researchers at Tandem Research, an interdisciplinary research collective based in Goa, that generates policy insights at the interface of technology society, and sustainability.)
