The fact that half the population of a megapolis like Mumbai or Delhi lives in slums and shanties is well known. All governments make attempts to improve their lives. Within a couple of days of the COVID lockdown, Delhi slum-dwellers received free rations to last six weeks, women got money and pensioners saw a doubling of their deposits. The needy got hot meals twice a day within 48 hours of the lockdown and, ever since, 2 million people (the population of the city of Patna) are being fed daily.
Then why do we see hundreds of migrants on television screens complaining bitterly about staying hungry? Why did the Supreme Court have to advise one ration card for all during the lockdown? Is there a difference between slum dwellers and migrants? Seasonal or permanent? Settled or stranded? To understand this, one has to see the constitutional provisions and policies governing the political economy. The latter endure migrants for economic reasons without amalgamating them under the state’s food safety nets.
According to the Constitution, urban development is the responsibility of municipal governments and the management of migration is one facet of that.
In administering welfare schemes, migrants are not equated with state residents, be it the regulation of minimum wages, housing, and political participation. A World Bank study has referred to “migrant unfriendly policies” that prevail throughout the country. Every state maintains reservation in government jobs and higher education, targets foodgrain distribution and provides social welfare essentially for the state’s own residents. Nurturing migrants is considered suicidal as it upsets the local residents who assert first claim on benefits, the Marathi Manoos syndrome being a case in point.
While migrants can access hospitals and receive treatment, this has never extended to habitation. On first arrival new migrants just try and get enough room to sleep. Eventually, after years, they might negotiate an address to show continuity of stay, which alone can enable them to get an election card and a ration card. For decades, they have travelled to the cities — a thousand migrants disembark just at Old Delhi railway station every day. Initially, they depend on mama-chacha networks while scouting for work. After years, they fetch the family. Seasonal workers are different, as they often come as a family. Many were left stranded after the lockdown.
Successive chief ministers have treated migrants as “not our problem”. Most migrants would be having ration cards in their home states but these are not transferable. Only when elections are on the horizon are they facilitated in getting a local Pehchan Patra (election card) and a ration card. But until those documents are acquired (or procured), they remain outside the welfare net.
During the COVID pandemic, the media has highlighted a situation no welfare state can afford to turn away from much longer. Turning a Nelson’s eye to the arrival of migrants and letting them rough it out on their own can contribute to unmanageable health hazards putting entire populations at risk. Permitting the vicious cycle of slums and squalor has shown how infection can permeate into dense populations. If COVID has not taught this lesson, nothing will. The states must now start to register every migrant. Only regular head counts will enable a correct measure of the entitlements.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-lockdown-migrant-labour-movement-coronavirus-6400665/
A key piece of legislation governing inter-state migrants in India is the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979. The Act was enacted to prevent the exploitation of inter-state migrant workmen by contractors, and to ensure fair and decent conditions of employment. The law requires all establishments hiring inter-state migrants to be registered, and contractors who recruit such workmen be licensed. Contractors are obligated to provide details of all workmen to the relevant authority. Migrant workmen are entitled to wages similar to other workmen, displacement allowance, journey allowance, and payment of wages during the period of journey. Contractors are also required to ensure regular payment, non-discrimination, provisioning of suitable accommodation, free medical facilities and protective clothing for the workmen.
The primary reason for this seems to be the onerous compliance requirements set out in the law. It not only requires equal pay for inter-state workmen, but also requires other social protection that would make their employment significantly more expensive than intra-state workmen. This includes the payments of different allowances, and requirements that contractors provide accommodation and healthcare for such workmen.
Not only does this raise questions about the utility of such well-meaning but impractical laws, it also highlights the lack of state capacity to enforce such provisions. To implement this law alone, government inspectors would not only have to maintain records of inter-state workmen, but also verify whether all the other requirements regarding wages, allowances, accommodation and health care are complied with.
The issues with the law and its non-enforcement are symptomatic of the socialist era, when the mere enactment of a law with aspirational requirements backed by legal coercion was considered adequate for creating good outcomes. This law, and many other labour-welfare legislation never considered issues like compliance costs, government capacity for enforcement, and importantly, counter-productive consequences. For example, the onerous requirements set out in this law incentivise contractors and employers to under-report inter-state workmen rather than to register them.
One of the lessons from this episode is to not let aspirational requirements become a hindrance to the effective protection of the very groups these requirements are designed for. This will require a principled distinction between formalisation and ostensible social-welfare. While the former seeks to make people or activities visible or “legible”, the latter goes a step further. Social-welfare protections are predicated upon formalisation, but non-compliance with onerous social welfare requirements can instead inhibit formalisation. This is not merely because of high compliance costs, but also because the state can barely keep up with the task of ensuring compliance with such requirements, made worse given the disincentives to comply.
Then why do we see hundreds of migrants on television screens complaining bitterly about staying hungry? Why did the Supreme Court have to advise one ration card for all during the lockdown? Is there a difference between slum dwellers and migrants? Seasonal or permanent? Settled or stranded? To understand this, one has to see the constitutional provisions and policies governing the political economy. The latter endure migrants for economic reasons without amalgamating them under the state’s food safety nets.
According to the Constitution, urban development is the responsibility of municipal governments and the management of migration is one facet of that.
In administering welfare schemes, migrants are not equated with state residents, be it the regulation of minimum wages, housing, and political participation. A World Bank study has referred to “migrant unfriendly policies” that prevail throughout the country. Every state maintains reservation in government jobs and higher education, targets foodgrain distribution and provides social welfare essentially for the state’s own residents. Nurturing migrants is considered suicidal as it upsets the local residents who assert first claim on benefits, the Marathi Manoos syndrome being a case in point.
While migrants can access hospitals and receive treatment, this has never extended to habitation. On first arrival new migrants just try and get enough room to sleep. Eventually, after years, they might negotiate an address to show continuity of stay, which alone can enable them to get an election card and a ration card. For decades, they have travelled to the cities — a thousand migrants disembark just at Old Delhi railway station every day. Initially, they depend on mama-chacha networks while scouting for work. After years, they fetch the family. Seasonal workers are different, as they often come as a family. Many were left stranded after the lockdown.
Successive chief ministers have treated migrants as “not our problem”. Most migrants would be having ration cards in their home states but these are not transferable. Only when elections are on the horizon are they facilitated in getting a local Pehchan Patra (election card) and a ration card. But until those documents are acquired (or procured), they remain outside the welfare net.
During the COVID pandemic, the media has highlighted a situation no welfare state can afford to turn away from much longer. Turning a Nelson’s eye to the arrival of migrants and letting them rough it out on their own can contribute to unmanageable health hazards putting entire populations at risk. Permitting the vicious cycle of slums and squalor has shown how infection can permeate into dense populations. If COVID has not taught this lesson, nothing will. The states must now start to register every migrant. Only regular head counts will enable a correct measure of the entitlements.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-lockdown-migrant-labour-movement-coronavirus-6400665/
A key piece of legislation governing inter-state migrants in India is the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979. The Act was enacted to prevent the exploitation of inter-state migrant workmen by contractors, and to ensure fair and decent conditions of employment. The law requires all establishments hiring inter-state migrants to be registered, and contractors who recruit such workmen be licensed. Contractors are obligated to provide details of all workmen to the relevant authority. Migrant workmen are entitled to wages similar to other workmen, displacement allowance, journey allowance, and payment of wages during the period of journey. Contractors are also required to ensure regular payment, non-discrimination, provisioning of suitable accommodation, free medical facilities and protective clothing for the workmen.
The primary reason for this seems to be the onerous compliance requirements set out in the law. It not only requires equal pay for inter-state workmen, but also requires other social protection that would make their employment significantly more expensive than intra-state workmen. This includes the payments of different allowances, and requirements that contractors provide accommodation and healthcare for such workmen.
Not only does this raise questions about the utility of such well-meaning but impractical laws, it also highlights the lack of state capacity to enforce such provisions. To implement this law alone, government inspectors would not only have to maintain records of inter-state workmen, but also verify whether all the other requirements regarding wages, allowances, accommodation and health care are complied with.
The issues with the law and its non-enforcement are symptomatic of the socialist era, when the mere enactment of a law with aspirational requirements backed by legal coercion was considered adequate for creating good outcomes. This law, and many other labour-welfare legislation never considered issues like compliance costs, government capacity for enforcement, and importantly, counter-productive consequences. For example, the onerous requirements set out in this law incentivise contractors and employers to under-report inter-state workmen rather than to register them.
One of the lessons from this episode is to not let aspirational requirements become a hindrance to the effective protection of the very groups these requirements are designed for. This will require a principled distinction between formalisation and ostensible social-welfare. While the former seeks to make people or activities visible or “legible”, the latter goes a step further. Social-welfare protections are predicated upon formalisation, but non-compliance with onerous social welfare requirements can instead inhibit formalisation. This is not merely because of high compliance costs, but also because the state can barely keep up with the task of ensuring compliance with such requirements, made worse given the disincentives to comply.
This has created a two-tier system – formal and informal. Those in the formal tier — fewer than 10 percent of the workforce — enjoy considerable protections, while those in the informal tier get almost no protections. Since welfare schemes are also predicated on the visibility of those getting the benefits, informal workers, especially in urban areas, fall through cracks in the system. The lack of any welfare net for informal workers in urban areas reflects the consequences of formalisation on paper — while farmers get cash transfers, and labourers in rural areas have MGNREGA, there are hardly any schemes for informal workers in urban areas.
Laws such as the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 must therefore be rationalised to remove requirements that disincentivise formalisation.
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