Sarbeswar Padhan
Odisha has lately made remarkable progress on the economic front as its growth rate has surpassed the national average in the last couple of decades. It has witnessed gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7.1 per cent against the national average of 6.6 between 2012-13 and 2019-20. While the main driver of the growth remains the service sector in other states, in case of Odisha, the industrial sector has emerged as one of the main drivers. However, when it comes to employment generation, Odisha has failed miserably. Despite its shrinking share (19 per cent) in total output, agriculture and allied activities continue to absorb half of its workforce (48.8 per cent). Theoretically, in a developing economy, shrinking agricultural output with continuing overdependence on it for employment fuels distress migration to the cities.The migrants look for greener pastures leaving behind their abundant mineral resources, mountains, forests and rivers to be encroached upon by the outsiders. The industry is incapable of generating an adequate number of jobs for the local youths.
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According to Census-2011, there were 45 crore migrants in India. Of them, 5.4 crore were inter-state migrants. In Odisha, 8.5 lakh people migrated to other states for different reasons, including unemployment. However, the labour migration, called ‘dadan’ in western Odisha, that occurred in undivided Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) districts, had gone unreported in the national statistics. In the KBK region, the most underdeveloped districts are known for poverty, agrarian crisis, chit-fund scams and mismanagement of healthcare facilities. This region sends lakhs of distress-driven migrants to different growth poles of urban centres. These segments are primarily unskilled and they belong to the lowest strata of the socio-economic pyramid, especially from Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC). Migrants were forced to work in unhygienic, dangerous and discriminated sites at brick-kilns of Hyderabad and construction sites in Mumbai and Raipur. It has been reported that migrants were treated as ‘nowhere citizens’ unable to exercise any fundamental rights over their labour.
According to a government report, following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly six lakh migrant workers, most of them being distressed-driven, have returned to the state. A sizeable number of migrants also reached the state through their own arrangements. Shockingly, 30 stranded labourers from Chennai took the sea route to reach Ganjam coast while thousands came by bicycle from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
During the first and second waves of COVID-19, the government took measures to deal with migrants, including providing cash incentives for voluntary home quarantine, advance rationing for all beneficiaries, and cash transfers to migrants upon completion of the quarantine period, among others. The government has also promised to create jobs through various schemes, particularly the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). These initiatives have been undertaken perfunctorily to address the grievance of distress-driven migration from the state.
Unfortunately, the loud outcry of civil society members and media on some gruesome incidents of brutalisation of migrants didn’t awaken the government from its deep slumber. Given the pandemic situation, young people from several parts of the state are venturing into other states for livelihood. While lakhs of labourers are waiting for their turn to board a train to travel to their workplaces, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (1979) is hardly being implemented on the ground. In sum, the state’s economic progress has failed to create adequate numbers of jobs and contain labour migration from the region. Distress-induced migration of unskilled workers bypassing the state’s policy is a shameful paradox of the so-called welfare state. The irony is that the state government cannot formulate any particular scheme for the backward region exclusively to stem migration. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognises migration as a powerful tool for migrants and their communities to achieve sustainable development. The manner in which migration occurs in the region dehumanises the poor and destitute that have no choice but to become trapped in a “vicious circle of poverty.”
The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, University of Delhi. Views are personal.
