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“Kahan chale gaye the?”, said the Head of Bihar Minister Nitish Kumar during his daily life, video conference with workers in one of the quarantine facilities in Muzaffarpur on Saturday. A welcome declaration of affection at a time when the CM has come under the radar for allegedly not caring for its migrant workers.
A policy approach appropriate to the sentiment has been adopted by the state. With the migrant workforce, largely unaccounted for, the Bihar government is preparing a draft for the signature of agreements with the employer of the member if the workforce decides to return to work.
During the last three days, similar to video conferences, which are held regularly. Sources in the government of Bihar to say 30 lakh migrant workers are expected to return at the end of May.
Meanwhile, the officers who have been commissioned to prepare the draft of Mou told News18, “Is for the state to play the role of intermediary between the various state Chief Secretaries have been in contact with us saying that they can’t get industries back on the track if the job does not return. The state wants to formalise this by the respect of the Bihari migrants, who have built large cities.”
This Memorandum of understanding will take care of the interests of the migrants in the form of insurance, housing and other aspects of social security. Sources say that the skill mapping of the workmen in the quarantine centres have been begun, which will ensure that the state can prepare a database of their migrants — an exercise that has never been done before. Sources say, the migrants have been told to submit their phone numbers and Aadhaar card details.
As many as 8,64,000 workers are back in the state and have been placed in 11,218 quarantine facilities in 38 districts. The concern for the state is also the fact that one out of every four migrants have tested positive for the Covid-19. Bihar government data show that the majority of workers in the back of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi have tested positive.
“It’s the health infrastructure in Bihar-specific problem? Then why do the majority of Surat and Mumbai have tested positive,” said a top state government official for News18.
Until now, the Chief Minister has attracted serious criticism for his handling of the migrant crisis. At a meeting of the CMs with the Prime Minister on 29 April, Kumar was firmly against bringing back the of his state, who were stranded in the rest of the country. He had described the proposal as “an injustice to the principle of safety lock.” He was the only one among the big states, which does little to bring students and migrant workers return to Bihar.
The dissatisfaction was also clear among the workers. News18 had reached a number of skilled and semi-skilled workers from Bihar, who had expressed their discontent with the government of the state.
An indication of the feeling among migrant workers to CM Kumar also can be extracted from a video that appeared on the 15th of April. “We want to convey this to you that talk to PM Modi and the special arrangements for buses to ferry us to Bihar…Open our ears and hear with cuidado…de otherwise, the ground under their feet will sink away…”, said a group of workers from Bihar, in a video posted on social networks. They were stranded in Badarpur border in Delhi.
The lack of employment is one of the major drivers of migration in the state. The unemployment rate in Bihar was 10.3 percent last year, and was among the highest in the country. According to CMIE, the state, the unemployment rate increased by 31.2 percentage points, increasing from 46.6 percent in April 2020, almost double the national average.
According to February 2020 study conducted by the Institute of Population Sciences, more than half of the households in Bihar are exposed to migration to more developed places in India and abroad. The survey, which covered 36 villages and 2,270 homes revealed that migration is highest for landless households. The report also found that 80 percent of migrants have no land or have less than an acre of land.
Noted economist, Jean Dreze in a recent interview stated that Bihar will be most affected due to return migration.
“Bihar is the biggest concern in the next couple of months. It has a great number of peasants without land. Be caste and class-ridden society, some communities are leading the hand-to-mouth existence, even in the best of times,” he said.
According to the 2001 Census, 28.5 lakh people migrated out of Bihar. The National Survey of 2007-08 established the percentage higher. He pointed out that 5.64 percent of the population moved out of state.
The 2011 Census found that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are responsible for the greatest amount of migrant as of 2.9 crore people moved out of the two states.
The 64th round of the National Survey stated that about 30.7 percent of the total migrants from Bihar, moved in search of employment, as they could not find work.
Added to this, Bihar has always been one of the poorest of India’s states since independence.
The mass reverse migration has also resulted in the drying up of remittances. An average of the migrant workers from Bihar sends Rs 2,100 on a monthly basis back home. Bihar gets the second highest home remittance in the country. The state received Rs 9,53,61.300 in March 2017. Remittances represent about 5 percent of all the state’s GDP.
To understand the importance of money sent home, consider this: according to the National Survey of 2007-08, 70 percent of remittances in Bihar are used to purchase food. The rest is consumed in the home maintenance and health care.
The latest Economic Survey of the state indicates that “it is true that the remittances of migrant workers, have a positive impact on consumption demand.”
Back in the state, Santosh Kumar, a resident of Madhubani district had told News18, “My brother is in Kerala from the running of the bulls. Is used to send close to Rs 5,000 every month. I work as an agricultural labour and earn only during the seasons. He has not been able to send money. We hope that you return home as soon as possible, but the difficulty will be huge this year.”
The Minister of finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, as part of its economic stimulus package earlier this month had announced the launch of ‘one nation, one ration card” that will benefit migrant workers who are currently outside of their states, due to the blockage or do not have access to fair prices where they are registered. Along with this, the Centre will also offer food grains to the migrants do not have ration cards for the next 2 months.
Ritu Dewan, Vice-president of the Indian Society of labour Economics, and the former President of the Indian Association of Studies of the Woman had told News18, “There are many fields in which they have been established. They can be easily converted to units of production. There is No need for so many masks, and gloves which can be produced in the home. These fields can be used for its production and, in turn, can earn a wage. Will take care of the demand and the consumption of the problems and help to mitigate the migrants, to a certain extent.”
Meanwhile, CM Nitish Kumar had last month spoken about the ability of training in the centers of quarantine. “Many ongoing projects in Bihar happen to be labor-intensive. Once the dust settles, a survey must be carried out to assess the skills of these migrant workers, and that must be absorbed in the workforce accordingly,” he said.
The citizens of Bihar also have a dual task at hand. Currently in the middle of resisting a drain of a global pandemic, that could have to choose a government within six months.
At a time when protectionism is the new buzzword in globalisation and states of India are also drawing the boundaries of these memoranda of understanding signifies a new chapter in the state of relationships that may give dignity to the work force?
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