After the surprise announcement of the nationwide lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, 2020, crores of workers trudged home from urban centres to their rural homes. Volunteers quickly organized to attend to calls for help. Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) came together and students and ordinary citizens got together to attend to distress calls, supply rations and arrange for transport of stranded workers seeking to return home.
As the second wave of the pandemic caused lockdowns that were more regional, the distress continued. Since April this year, SWAN has collected over Rs30 lakh through crowdsourcing and transferred the sum to workers’ accounts – the group reached out to over 8000 workers, and over 75% of them had less than Rs200 with them at the time of making the call. Over 90% of workers had not received dues from employers after the shutdown was announced.
SWAN, which comprises students in the main, has now produced a report of the work undertaken, with data from the time of the second wave of the pandemic. The helpline number that the group had started last year was revived in April this year.
Over 90 per cent of India’s workers are in the informal sector, with no security of work, many earning daily wages. Long spells of no work has forced many of them to dig deep into their reserves. As the pandemic raged in its second wave early in 2021, many families were forced to sell property to meet medical expenses. Although the crisis this year is rather more acute, and has affected even sections of the society not previously counted among the poor, it has not found as much attention in the media.
“For the poor, the last few months have been a kind of syndemic; a crisis of livelihood and hunger that has been compounded by the ubiquitous healthcare crisis that has paralysed the country. Images of hungry and tired migrant workers making long journeys home were at the forefront of public discourse in 2020. This year, however, the impact of the crisis on the economically vulnerable and marginalised sections has received considerably less attention. Undoubtedly the scourge of the second wave has been unparalleled; crippling the country’s health infrastructure and devastating communities and families,” the SWAN report states.
A higher proportion of workers this year have no work, no savings, no wages and no access to health services. The helpline was restarted in late April; by May 31, over 8,000 requests for ration support were received.
What is significant is also the near-absence of government in this time of distress. While the Union government has delegated relief responsibility to states, the states have faced enormous squeeze in their resources, with GST transfers not received in time. Despite Supreme Court orders seeking the setting up of community kitchens for stranded workers, relief offered by government was hard to find.
Less than five per cent of Indian workers are engaged in the formal sector, where jobs are decent and timing regulated. “Before delving into the current situation, it is instructive to recall some facts concerning the informal sector and the conditions of the poor before 2020. Of the estimated 439.2 – 452.4 million in the 2017-18 workforce (Nath and Basole, 2020), only 4.2% are employed in what can be called a “good job” or “decent work” (Kapoor, 2020).” Average monthly earnings in the informal sector do not provide scope for savings or even for covering nutritious meals, with casual daily wage workers earning on average only Rs6000 per month. Employment generation has also not kept pace with population growth, which in turn has led to higher informalisation of work and greater vulnerability.
Given the increasing inequality, with the top 10% of the country holding 77 per cent of the nation’s wealth, there is need for rapid expansion in social security and increased taxation of the wealthy. Even a two per cent tax on the richest one per cent could yield the government over Rs9 lakh crore in revenue, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown greater proclivity to burden the poor with indirect taxes. In 2019, corporate tax was reduced.
The government has shrunk budgets for schemes that provide nutrition and education; National Family Health Survey data shows that 36% of Indian children are underweight. Despite all its shortcomings, the Public Distribution System has remained a lifeline for poor families; a 2021 World Bank paper showed that 74% of surveyed households had received food grains through the PDS. One relief measure under the lockdown was additional foodgrains under PDS, but that was stopped in November 2020 and only recently re-started, after the second wave of the pandemic took hold.
For the poor, one coping strategy is to reduce consumption – milk and eggs and even dal become items of luxury, consumed only occasionally. The effects of such changes in diet will take time to manifest, and the growth and development of children will be affected, in the long term.
The new labour codes introduced by the government, subsuming the 29 labour laws, cuts to social security spending and the continued growth in incomes of the highest earners is bound to make all these conditions even worse.
“The second wave has been marked by the conspicuous absence of the GOI and the top-down instructions from the PM and the Ministry of Home Affairs that followed the lockdown of March 2020,” the SWAN report notes.
Responsibility has shifted to the states, whose sources of revenue have shrunk following the introduction of the GST regime in 2017. At the 41st GST Council meeting on August 27, 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman asserted that the pandemic was “an act of God” for which the Union government could not offer compensation to states – she instructed states to borrow from the market. The GST council meeting on May 2021 has also not led to any concrete outcome for the states.
“Till the recent announcement on 7th June 2021, the centre had completely abdicated its responsibility of procuring and administering vaccines, passing the buck on to states that were already strapped for funds and limited in their capacity. Moreover, having private players procure 25% of the vaccines will further fast track the access to essential health services for the rich. It is in this context that one has to understand how the principles of cooperative federalism have been trampled by the central government,” the SWAN report states.
The report stresses the need for a relief and recovery package, to ensure that food, income and work are provided to those in need. It recommends cash transfer of Rs3000 should be paid to all households where no member pays income tax, until the pandemic situation eases. PDS distribution should be expanded even to non-PDS card holders till November 2021.
Schools and anganwadi centres should be allowed to function, so that the meals of children can be provided. National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should expand the number of work days under the scheme from the present 100 per household to 150. The report also offers suggestions on resource mechanisms to fund these provisions.