Covid-19 crisis: Migrant workers face food subsidy struggles amid pandemic, stick to cities

Bengaluru’s migrants are not as badly hit since construction activities have been allowed to carry on during the two-week lockdown

While the country’s first coronavirus wave and subsequent lockdowns forced migrant workers to line up in long queues and scramble home, the more ferocious second wave has brought its own set of problems for the labourers -- lack of food, invalid documentation and higher infection rates.

According to a survey of 120 people in Ahmedabad conducted by Aajeevika Bureau, which works with migrant workers, many workers do not have valid documentation for the city they were living in and are likely to be the worst hit by lockdowns. The lack of key documentation keeps them from access to food subsidies and benefits they desperately need.

The Centre had launched the One Nation, One Ration Card programme during last year’s migrant crisis to help workers benefit from public distribution scheme benefits even if they were not in their hometown. However, while the scheme was essentially good for workers, there were still some operational pitfalls and communication gaps that needed to be filled.

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“Workers face a lot of problems because of documentation,” says Vikas Kumar, a labour analyst working at the Aajeevika Bureau in Bengaluru. “Even after they have got registration, after they have received some ration, they were getting calls from their village PDS offices and were told that if they were getting ration from cities, their names would be removed back home.”

There have been only 44,210 transactions under the scheme, according to information available on the Integrated Management of Public Distribution System portal. India has over 4.8 crore inter-state migrants, based on census data crunched by the World Bank.

Surprisingly, Ajeevika’s survey estimates migrant workers spend Rs 5,506 on average each month on food (ration items, vegetable, milk, eggs, fuel, fruit), whereas an average middle-class person in Ahmedabad spends an average of Rs 3,600 a month. This is because migrant workers cannot afford to buy in bulk and stock up, Kumar argues in a Scroll.in article on the findings.

The other issue, according to Kumar, is that the Covid wave this time around is far more infectious and many more migrant labourers are contracting it as compared to the last time, calling for larger policy shifts for the informal sector that might take more time. However, he said many migrant workers had decided not to leave cities this time and weather the storm, as restrictions are not as severe as last time.

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Bengaluru’s migrants are not as badly hit as construction activities have been allowed to carry on during the two-week lockdown, slated to begin on May 10. R. Raja, who works to provide identity cards so migrant labourers can claim benefits under government schemes, said many of the city’s migrants share some of the issues with documentations faced in other parts of the country.

“Many migrant workers don’t have proper documentation,” said Raja. “If they have an Aadhaar card, they don’t have the number to which it is linked. We try and help them get past those hurdles.”

Several workers live together in shared rooms and may not always be able to follow Covid protocols while working, he added. Vikas Kumar says though the situation in Bengaluru is still under control as long as migrant labourers have work, they could be put under severe stress if the situation deteriorates.