Migrant workers

Workers building Namma Metro are facing a severe crisis due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Despite the central government’s order to all states to ensure that wages are paid during the lockdown period, the companies and contractors involved in Metro work have not paid most workers their salaries for February and March.  The construction of Metro Rail’s Yellow Line was stopped overnight on the day of the lockdown, and workers were asked to leave the construction site without any prior notice. Unless urgent action is taken by BMRCL and concerned authorities, thousands of workers will be directly affected and the secondary…

Media reports indicate that the Centre and state governments are looking at options for a graded exit from the lockdown. This note lists certain factors to be kept in mind before deciding that strategy. The consequences of the lockdown have been felt most sharply by urban daily wage earners like street vendors, auto drivers, migrant workers, and marginalised and stigmatised communities like sex workers and transgender communities, nomadic communities who earn as they move, frontline workers engaged in cleaning and health, farmers and landless farm workers. There has been a severe impact on food security, livelihood, security and health. Besides,…

On an endless stretch of National Highway 58 (NH-58), a batch of over 200 migrant workers, arriving all the way from Ahmedabad are intercepted at the Rajasthan borders. The officials manning the borders, who are short-stocked on testing kits or thermal screening devices are insistent that the ‘returnees’ produce ‘Health Certificates’. The repeated claims of the migrants, including women and elderly, that they are natives of the state are insufficient to secure them safe passage back to their homes in South Rajasthan. Since the nation-wide lock down on March 24th, the reverse-migration of semi-skilled and unskilled workers ‘on foot’ --…

National Common Mobility Card in Metro from March The BMRCL (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited) is installing AFC (Automatic Fare Collection) systems on trial basis at Baiyappanahalli, Mysuru Road and Majestic stations, to facilitate the central government’s ambitious ‘One Nation One Card’ policy. The National Common Mobility Card will enable people to use multiple modes of transport like Metro and BMTC buses, pay parking fees and toll, and purchase at retail stores. BMRCL Managing Director Ajay Seth said the facility will be available for commuters from Mysuru Road to Baiyappanahalli on Purple Line, by March end. The AFC systems are…

Take a drive from Dehradun’s iconic Forest Research Institute (FRI) towards the city centre, the Clock Tower, and you will observe a clogged, toxic and dead Bindal river. Much of the uncollected waste from the city finds its way here. Next to the river are almost 30,000 slum dwellings harbouring a population of 1.25 lakh people. It is also a home to around 100 to 150 waste picker families. Apart from Bindal, large numbers of waste picker families live in the slums of Kanwali, Lakkhibagh, Premnagar and Kargi. Enter Bindal slum and one can see many homeless children carrying waste…

What does a city look like? Who lives in the city? If you are thinking of the New York skyline, skyscrapers, wide roads, clean streets and cars, you are perhaps not alone. These westernized imaginings are quick to invade our mind whenever there is talk of urbanscape. However, now think consciously of the space that we inhabit, a typical Indian megacity, and our own daily experiences may present themselves as stark contradictions. Having lived in Mumbai, when I think of a city I am taken back to my daily commutes to college, in the local trains. Standing at the doorstep,…

You see them every morning, all across the city. Pourakarmikas, pushing their rickety handcarts, sweeping the streets and collecting the garbage that residents, shops and others have just left by the roadside for them to clear. Bangalore actually needs many more of these unrecognised and overworked workers, who provide a truly essential service, keeping the city clean. But have you ever wondered what does their work mean to them? Is it a choice or a compulsion? Pourakarmikas toil in working conditions that are far from perfect, as numerous reports and studies have shown. Hired by contractors selected by the city…

Hadu Bahera owns a ‘home’ for 12-hours every day. During this time, the 51-year-old loom worker inhabits a six-by-three-feet space in a dingy room on Ved Road in north Surat. His co-worker uses the same space for the other 12 hours – depending on their shifts, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or the reverse. The occasional ‘holidays’ – when there is a power cut – are days to be dreaded. Nearly 60 workers must then fit into a 500-square feet room at Mahavir Mess, where Bahera is presently space-sharing. The summer months – when temperatures reach 40 degrees Celcius…