Migrant workers

Spurt in COVID deaths Although Bengaluru has a recovery rate of 51.4% with respect to COVID-19 patients, its death rate of 3.95% is the highest among districts in Karnataka. In comparison, the State's average death rate is 1.15%. The number of deaths has shot up in Bengaluru since June 1. According to the State health bulletin, of 581 positive cases in Bengaluru as on June 11, 23 have died. Of them, 13 died in June alone. Doctors say that the deaths are due to late reporting and referral by other hospitals, apart from severe co-morbidities. The deaths are expected to…

Why do Shramik trains arranged after a 60-day long wait by workers have to be so carefully mismanaged? How do they end up taking extra-long routes? And why are passengers given such meagre amounts of water and food? Is this what ‘shramiks’ should get after spending days trying to satisfy all procedures, whims and fancies of the concerned departments and officials?  Why does everything to do with workers have to be a planned nightmare?  Let me share snippets from the journey of a worker from Bengaluru to Jampani village in Jharkhand, which led me to ask these questions.  The journey…

For weeks, thousands of migrant workers who had started on their arduous journeys back home, trudged past Devanahalli cross. The sight, Mukkham Ila says, made her weep. “We can understand the hunger and desperation. They just wanted to go home. We couldn’t bear to see them hungry,” she says.   Some time in the first week of May, Mukkham asked her son to buy wheat, vegetables and groceries. The family’s income from a mutton shop and from daily-wage labour had been hit by the lockdown. Still, they managed to spare over Rs. 2,500. "We wanted to feed at least 80…

“Hum Corona se nahi, bhook se marenge!”  (“I’ll not die of Corona, but will definitely die of hunger!”). This is the poignant cry of many migrant workers left without work, wages and food in labour camps across Bengaluru during the COVID-19 lockdown. After the endless wait for trains to their hometowns as well as the State’s failed promise to deliver them food/ration kits, migrant labourers preferred to walk more than 1000 km home, carrying their elderly, children and meagre belongings. It shows their desperation, as no one, if they had enough to eat, would have embarked on such journeys. One…

On May 18, Minister of Railways, Piyush Goyal appealed to migrant workers to stay where they were, as the railways planned to double the number of Shramik Trains to 400 per day in two days. He also said that an additional 200 non-AC trains would be operational by June 1. While this increased capacity is a welcome sign, will it be enough to service Bengaluru's stranded workers? A large number of Bengaluru's workers are walking thousands of kilometres to their home states, as the efforts of the governments to arrange transportation has fallen short of the exploding demand. "The Labour…

Vikas Kumar was all smiles as he alighted from the first Shramik Train that brought him Jaipur to Danapur, on the outskirts of Patna, on May 2nd. Even as he realized that the smile would be short lived, given the reality of life back in his village of having to take care of his six-member family and his aged parents. “I am clueless about my future,” said Vikas who worked in a stone cutting factory in Jaipur. “It was a hard decision to return, but there was no other option as we were dying there. I did not get my…

Karnataka government and industry bodies have been speaking of the need to relax labour laws in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. We, at AICCTU (All India Central Council of Trade Unions), believe that in the crisis caused by the pandemic, we must strengthen labour laws, not weaken them. We submitted a memorandum to the state government in this regard on May 15. We hope that the government will consider our demands seriously and initiate action quickly. Government must strengthen labour laws to fight hunger and poverty, to build a secure society.Government must discuss with all trade unions on how labour…

In the concluding part of this two-part series, we look at what prevented builders and the government from rushing to the aid of construction labourers during the lockdown. In Part 1 'Why Bhuvilal Mahato stayed back in Bengaluru' we saw how migrant workers who were looked after by their employers, did not feel the need to leave the city. For migrant workers in Bengaluru, the promise of deliverance after a traumatic locked down lasted briefly. No sooner did Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announce shramik special trains to ferry them back to their States, the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’…

Migrant workers from Bihar wait at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, only to be turned back by the BBMP after three days, in early May. Pic Credit: Senthil S Although construction activity in Bengaluru got a go-ahead, Ramachandra returned to his family in Bihar during that brief window when the government ran trains for migrant workers. He had started work at a construction site six months ago. His new home was in a labour camp in Ulsoor, with 400 other workers. Though he had worked through March, he was not paid. The contractor said the builder had not paid him.…

In Varanasi, it is death that gives one that sense of normalcy. The rising flames from the pyres at Manikarnika Ghat on the banks of the Ganga are as much a sign of the city’s spiritual legacy for all Indians, as they are that life and times in this holy city are as ordained. When the flames die, as they have died now, it indicates that something has gone very wrong. The common sight not so long ago, on the stretch from Lahura Beer crossing to Maidagin, of a corpse wrapped in shiny shroud atop a vehicle, has become a…