Plight of Migrants at Destination

1. Documentation and Identity

A birth certificate is the primary proof of citizenship in India.
The overall birth registration rate in the country is 34.7 percent.
This means that many labor migrants are undocumented when
they arrive in the receiving community.
The Aadhar project seeks to remedy this problem by issuing a
16-digit identity number to everyone on the National Population
Register.
Across India, the ration card is the de facto necessary proof of
identity that is essential for access to public services such as
hospital care and education
The basic problem of establishing identity results in a loss of
access to entitlements and social services. Lack of identification
means migrants are not able to access provisions such as
subsidized food, fuel, health services, or education that are
meant for the economically vulnerable sections of the
population.

Housing
Migration and slums are inextricably linked, as labor demand in
cities and the resulting rural-to-urban migration creates greater
pressures to accommodate more people

In 2011, 68 million Indians lived in slums, comprising one-

quarter of the population of India’s 19 cities with more than 1
million residents.
However, many seasonal migrants are not even able to “make it”
to the slums. Unaffordable rents in slums force them to live at
their workplaces (such as construction sites and hotel dining
rooms), shop pavements, or in open areas in the city. This
further perpetuates their vulnerability to harassment by the
police and other local authorities.
Limited Access to Formal Financial Services
Despite the economic imperatives that drive migration, migrant
workers essentially remain an unbanked population. Since
migrants do not possess permissible proofs of identity and
residence, they fail to satisfy the Know Your Customer (KYC)
norms as stipulated by the Indian banking regulations. They are
thus unable to open bank accounts in cities. This has
implications on the savings and remittance behaviors of migrant
workers.

Political Exclusion
In a state of continuous drift, migrant workers are deprived of
many opportunities to exercise their political rights. Because
migrants are not entitled to vote outside of their place of origin,
some are simply unable to cast their votes.

Local politics also have major implications for internal migrants.

The intersection of local identity politics and migration creates
political volatility in many cities and regions across India,
including in Assam in the Northeast, Andhra Pradesh in the
South, as well as cities across Northern India.

Responses to Migration
State Responses
The inflows of migrants from rural areas and small towns into
big cities has contributed to urban congestion and housing
shortages in cities across India.

One of the policy conclusions that national policymakers have

drawn from these outcomes is that the state should undertake
efforts to prevent internal migration, through schemes such as
rural employment programs. Such policy positions have
persisted despite building evidence that migration can have
positive outcomes for the poor.
The Government of India’s Inter-State Migrant Workmen
(Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act of
1979 was passed in order to address the unjust working
conditions of migrant workers, including the necessity of gaining
employment through middlemen contractors or agents who
promise a monthly settlement of wages but do not pay when the
times comes. The act lists the responsibilities of employers and
contractors and the rights of workers to wages that are equal to
those of the local employees, the right to return home
periodically without losing wages, and the right to medical care
and housing at the employment site. In practice, however, this
act is overwhelmingly ignored by state governments. As such, it
articulates ideal working conditions for interstate migrants, but
lacking provisions for enforcement, it has not been used to
create a better policy environment in practice.

Civil-Society Interventions
Welfare Services and Social protection for Migrants.
Service provided to migrants include registration and photo ID
cards; skills training and placement services for jobs at urban
destinations; legal aid and literacy programs; organization of
worker collectives at destination; assistance accessing banking
and social security; and strengthening support systems for
women and families affected by male migration.
Education for Children of Migrants. NGOs in high out-
migration areas have designed and implemented initiatives such
as seasonal hostels and residential-care centers to enable
inclusion of children from migrant families in schools at both
source and destination
Organizing Workers for Demanding Entitlements. NGOs such
as PRAYAS Center for Labor Research and Action have adopted
the rights-based strategy of unionizing migrant workers. They
work with vulnerable occupation streams such as construction,
brick-making, and cotton ginning. Through this model of
unionization, PRAYAS was able to successfully reduce the
number of child workers who were being trafficked to cotton
seed farms from Rajasthan to Gujarat
Institutional Linkages with the Urban Labor
Market. Organizations such as Labournet in Bangalore have
initiated programs aimed at member registration, certified
training, and placement; the system acts as an interface between
employers and certified workers. Apart from providing work
linkages, they also facilitate the workers’ access to social security
and financial inclusion.
Access to Food Entitlements at Destination

The Union Budget, announced on February 1, has

committed to provide assistance for building 3.7 million
houses in urban areas in 2018-19 under the Pradhan
Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). However, this does little to
resolve India’s urban housing crisis, which affects the
poorest and most marginalised populations in cities.
Housing for All by 2022 will remain a rhetoric and
India’s urban housing crisis will only aggravate further
if the government fails to listen to the needs of this
large cross section of urban populations.

UN
Domestic workers who work in middle class homes in Delhi, drivers
working for taxi companies in Gurgaon, the construction worker in
Kerala and the agricultural labourer in Punjab in all probability have one
thing in common – they are migrants. Nearly one-third of India’s
population is migrant population. Half of this population has migrated
from rural areas to cities in search of work. Lack of alternate livelihoods
and skill development in source areas, locations from where migration
originates, are the primary causes of migration from rural areas. Workers
migrate seasonally, temporarily, or for a longer period, either within a
state or across states. More often than not, they are vulnerable, exploited
and work in conditions where their rights are not protected.

Migration is Crucial to
Development…
Labour migration within India is crucial for
economic growth and contributes to improving the
socio-economic condition of people. Migration can
help, for example, to improve income, skill
development, and provide greater access to
services like healthcare and education.
 But Migration is Risky and Challenging
Despite positive outcomes of migration, the process of migration
can be very challenging for both male and female migrant
workers, whether it is voluntary or distress (forced) migration.

The challenge is that migrants usually form a class of invisible

workers. They work in poor conditions, with no access to
government services and schemes, which are usually available to
other workers. There are different risks in source and destination
areas. Needs of family members, including infants, children,
adolescents and elderly who accompany migrant workers or are
left behind in source areas also need to be addressed.

Potentially negative costs and risks for migrant workers that

need to be mitigated include:

 Lack of awareness among migrants about their rights as

‘workers’ and as ‘migrant workers’
 Unscrupulous labour agents who coerce workers and do not
pay minimum wages as stipulated by law
 Many migrants, especially young girls and women, are
deceived and trafficked
 Workers who engage in seasonal work, such as in brick
kilns or agriculture, are often trapped in a situation of debt and
bondage
 Enforcement of laws and protection of rights of workers
during migration and at worksites
 Poor and unsafe working and living conditions, lack of
occupational health and safety
 Possibility of violence at the workplace and sexual
harassment of women
 Greater threat of nutritional diseases, occupational
illnesses, communicable diseases, alcoholism, HIV and AIDS
amongst migrant populations
 Exclusion or lack of access to public services and social
protection for migrants due to regulatory and/or administrative
procedures in destination states

Making Work Decent for Migrants

 Establishing institutional mechanisms for inter-state
coordination
 Improving enforcement of labour laws
 Adopting a four-pronged approach for better protection of
rights of workers that defines the roles and responsibilities of the
state, employers, workers/trade unions/civil society organizations
and emphasizes the use of social dialogue and collective
bargaining for promoting the rights of migrant workers
 Ensuring access and portability of social security schemes,
for example, access to public distribution network/ subsidized
ration in destination areas
 Accessing housing, water and sanitation
 Providing identity documents to migrants, which enables
them to open bank accounts and enrol for welfare schemes
 Universal registration of workers on a national platform and
developing comprehensive databases
 Strengthening and/or setting up district facilitation centres,
migrant information centres and gender resource centres
 Strengthening the role of panchayats in registering workers
 Strengthening the role of vigilance committees to guard
against bonded labour and child labour
 Registering workers by organizing enrolment camps
 Providing education and health services at the worksites or
seasonal hostels
 Providing skills training, in particular for adolescents and
young workers
 Establishing a universal helpline for migrant workers
According to the State of World Population report, more than half of the
world’s population lives in urban areas, and the number is steadily
growing every year. India, where the majority of the population is still
dependent on agriculture, is no exception to this trend. As per the census,
the level of urbanization in India has increased from 27.81% in 2001 to
31.16% in 2011. Urbanization in India is a consequence of demographic
explosion and poverty-induced rural-urban migration.

The Economic Survey of India 2017 estimates that the magnitude of

inter-state migration in India was close to 9 million annually between
2011 and 2016, while Census 2011 pegs the total number of internal
migrants in the country (accounting for inter- and intra-state movement)
at a staggering 139 million. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the biggest
source states, followed closely by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan,
Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal; the major
destination states are Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra
Pradesh and Kerala.

Vulnerabilities faced by seasonal migrants

Seasonal migrants dominate the low-paying, hazardous and informal

market jobs in key sectors in urban destinations, such as construction,
hotel, textile, manufacturing, transportation, services, domestic work etc.

They have poor access to health services, which results in very poor
occupational health. Since they cannot afford private hospitals, they often
go back to their villages once they fall sick.

Vulnerabilities of the migrant workforce

In an unorganized and chaotic labour market, migrant workers regularly

face conflicts and disputes at worksites. The common issues they face are
non-payment of wages, physical abuse, accidents and even death. The
existing legal machinery is not sensitive to the nature of legal disputes in
the unorganized sector. Many informal sector disputes never make their
way to labour courts or keep languishing in courts for lack of proof.

The cities were built on the hard labour and exploitation of migrant
workers, but they never entered the consciousness of the architects;
instead, they are considered part of the problem in cities. The political
class ignores them because they don’t count as votes, especially in the
case of inter-state migrants. Due to their mobile nature, they don’t find
any place in the manifestos of trade unions. They spend their whole day
on worksites and silently sneak into perilous shelters at night, without the
cities even noticing them.

The challenges are still complex and the lack of recognition for migrants
is still to be fully addressed. Unless we view migrant workers as a
dynamic part of a changing India, we will not be able to solve the
problem of urbanization.