PRATEEK RAJ
  • Home
  • Research
  • History Notes
  • Strategy Notes
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Journey
  • Home
  • Research
  • History Notes
  • Strategy Notes
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Journey

Safety net for migrant workers

3/28/2020

0 Comments

 
During the national lockdown, lacks of vulnerable migrant workers are leaving for their hometowns, often in large crowds. For example, thousands of migrants crowding at the Delhi bus station are most certainly going to accelerate the pandemic. However, the situation without a lockdown would be worse. The fear that migrant workers have today is decades in the making. Consider New Delhi. The whole city rests on the low paid labor of the migrants, but many Delhiites look down upon them with derision - as unwanted outsiders. Those who work from paycheck to paycheck have no safety net or savings, no local government support (they do not vote) and their employers have little responsibility towards their health and safety. They are the expendables of society. 
​
Many do not appreciate the significance of bank accounts (Jan Dhan Yojana) and promoting cashless transactions (Digital India) in providing safety net to migrant workers. Such schemes have opened a channel of assistance between the central government and migrant workers that did not exist before. Migrant workers have been brought out from the shadows, although the assault of demonetization, mismanaged GST implementation and now COVID-19 has also made their situation more precarious. A major reason why the BJP government is back in power is because it achieved social welfare penetration greater than any government in the past - it pursued "programmatic politics" at least on the economic front. It would be prudent for the government to seriously consider some form of basic income at this time, and to communicate with the vulnerable groups in a targeted manner through their mobile devices. This is also an opportunity to build the social safety net India did not have in the past. 

India is better prepared to manage this lockdown, and protect the vulnerable, than anytime before in the past. So, lets not panic. In an exercise of this scale, there will be setbacks, and these setbacks will get coverage (thanks to a free media), and such coverage will make the government learn and act better. This is how government is supposed to work in such times of the uncertainty and crisis. We act, we learn, and we improve.
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Prateek Raj

    Personal blog. Views expressed are my own, expressed in personal capacity.

      Subscribe to blog updates

    Subscribe to blog

    Archives

    May 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    November 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    September 2017
    August 2016
    September 2014
    May 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.