This PPT outlines how indian cities are exclusive in nature and fail to accomodate seasonal or temporary migrants which resulted in to exodus of migrants from indian cities in the wake of Covid 19 pandemic.

1. Who are these people?
What is compelling them to take arduous journey to home?
Exclusive Cities
Invisibility of Urban Migrants

2. They are Seasonal Migrants - Invisible in the Census and in national sample
surveys… and consequently to administrators

3. Based on NSSO’s 2007-08 survey, a short-term migrant is one who
‘stayed away from the village/town for a period of 1 month or more but
less than 6 months during the last 365 days for employment or in
search of employment’.
The short-term migration cycle, however, can be longer than six
months.
The Indian statistical system is not designed to capture such temporary
migration and as a result policy makers remain unaware of its extent
and likely increase
The past week has seen emphatic validation of these claims as
highways across the country have been pedestrianized
Who is a seasonal Migrant?

4. Were they so invisible! Were they taken into consideration before lockdown?

5. • The political class ignores them because they don’t count as votes,
especially in the case of inter-state migrants.
• Due to their mobile nature, they don’t find any place in the
manifestos of trade unions.
• The low interstate portability of identity documents can make it
difficult for low-skilled interstate circular migrants to claim the
benefits that they are entitled to under labor laws.
• And finally we all ignore them because it is not our concern !!!
The city fails to notice them

6. What are their vulnerabilities? Why they are not part of policy imagination?

7. Vulnerabilities of the migrant workforce
• In an unorganized and chaotic labour market, migrant workers
regularly face conflicts and disputes at worksites. The common issues
they face are non-payment of wages, physical abuse, accidents and
even death. The existing legal machinery is not sensitive to the nature
of legal disputes in the unorganized sector.
• A large majority of them hail from historically marginalized groups
such as the SCs and STs, which adds an additional layer of
vulnerability to their urban experiences.

8. Why they want to
leave City? Did they
lack trust in
Government and in
all of us ?

9. The thriving cities! How do they thrive?

10. Not Our Concern Syndrome!
The Other City…

11. Survivors’ of cities – how do they survive?

12. We need them safe- to ensure our survival

13. How do we get them back? .. We need them for sustaining city’s survival

14. How do we facilitate them?… They are non existent in the systems How Cities Can be made inclusive ?

16. Who is a migrant labour?

17. Seasonal migration is a household strategy for managing risk where
one or more members of family go away from the village to find work
and that this is a central part of rural livelihoods
It is a diversification strategy
Why Seasonal/ Short-Term/ Circular Migration takes place?

18. Lack of enumeration of migrant workers
As soon as the migrant reaches the destination, there is no state led first point of
contact for declaration of her arrival. Hence, lack of systematic database
No Access to urban poverty alleviation programs
(Shelter services, urban health services, nutrition and immunization services, Anganwadi
services, livelihoods programs, shelters for migrant workers)
Domicile based PDS system
(Not considered as urban poor, migrants cannot access PDS services due to lack of domicile)
Lack of enumeration of their settlements in the city
(Living in shelter arrangements provided by the employer, cramped spaces, unrecognized slum
settlements, there is no proper mapping of their settlements
Broad Immediate Issues Faced by Migrants

19. Issues faced by Urban Poverty Programs to work with migrants
No uniform criterion for identification of urban poor
Multiple definitions are in operation. Most States have definitions that suit their specific
conditions
1
2
No uniform principle for beneficiary identification by urban
programs
For instance, Ayushman Bharat identified beneficiaries through select criteria from SECC-11
data, DAY-NULM recognizes the urban poor as identified by the States as per their respective
definitions, PMAY(U) identifies beneficiaries based on EWS and LIG criterion (Household income
Upto Rs 3 lakh and Rs 6 lakh respectively)

20. Issues faced by Urban Poverty Programs to work with migrants
Migratory nature of rural poor to urban areas and lack of a
mechanism to recognize the same
The long-term rural migrants ultimately add to number of urban poor. However,
the migrating poor do not receive continued support when they move to
another urban area
3
4
Static nature of the urban poor definition
SECC data gets updated once in ten years. This is too long a period for
addition/deletion of beneficiaries already supported. There is no uniform mechanism
to update the dynamic data of poverty

21. Name of the Scheme Eligibility Criteria/ Scope of the Scheme Inclusive for
Migrants
AMRUT
(Provides adequate sewage networks and water
supply)
The Census data forms the key policy thrust
PM Awas Yojana
(In-Situ Slum Redevelopment)
Have to be in settled in Notified Slum Settlement
In case, migrants live in notified settlement, domicile and
ownership documents required
National Health Mission
(Primary health centres, other health welfare
provisions )
Primary health care facilities are free
Access to welfare schemes to those domicile document
Integrated Child Development Scheme- Urban
(Cash benefit to pregnant and lactating
mothers, Swadhar Greh, Anganwadi, take home
ration and nutrition schemes)
Only to those women with district domicile, who can produce
Ration card and bank account details to prove this.
Matrix of National Urban Schemes

22. Name of the Scheme Eligibility Criteria/ Scope of the Scheme Inclusive for
Migrants
DAY- National Urban Livelihood Mission
(Access to skills training, financial inclusion,
bank loans, shelter services, welfare provisions
or street vendors)
SECC data – Slightly more inclusive and Census data
Skills Training requires State domicile of the candidate +
domicile of any city within the State
Defines homeless as -anyone living on pavements, under
bridges and on construction sites
Forming Self help groups, bank linkage, loan applications
require domicile documents
Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban Scope extends to notified and de-notified slums
However, concentration of PTs and CTs is around notified slums
of the ULB
Matrix of National Urban Schemes

23. Name of the Scheme Eligibility Criteria/ Scope of the Scheme Inclusive for
Migrants
National Food Security Act
(Access to food-provisions to urban poor)
Eligibility for PDS entitlements requires domicile document of
the city
Factories Act and the Shops and Establishments
Act
(Law that registers large majority of the
industrial units and mid sized units)
Do not have any special provisions for the housing needs of
migrant workers.
The Building and Other Construction Workers
(BoCW) Act
Provision for housing of migrant workers by the employer or
contractor
Does not define principle employer
Inter-State Migrant Workers (ISMW) Act Governs the recruitment and employment of inter-state
migrant workers
Lack of effective administrative machinery in place.
Matrix of National Acts and Regulations

24. Proposed Engagement
Unified Poverty List
• Unified poverty list will definitely make the access to benefits irrespective of
geographical location, within the state easier.
• However, intra-state access needs to be backed up with adequate
administrative mechanisms.
• For instance, multiple MoUs such as MoU between erstwhile AP and Odisha for
the welfare of brick kiln workers, should be encouraged.
1

25. One Ration Card One Nation Scheme
2
Proposed Engagement
• Access to entitlements should be delinked from domicile status.
• Critical public services such as food, health and education remain portable
and accessible to mobile populations
• “One Nation One Ration Card”, a programme that is being currently piloted,
is a promising first step, but more needs to be done in terms of factoring in
prominent migration corridors

26. City level Destination services through City Livelihood Centers-DAY NULM
3
55 existing CLCs in Million plus and smart cities
*The proposed idea will require Centre/state led funding support , as DAY-NULM’s are not yet self sustainable centers
Database creation
• Registration of migrant workers upon arrivals
• Collated City-level database will be an important
resource for upcoming state initiatives for migrant
communities
• Profiling the training needs of these short-term
migrants will create a database for DAY-NULM and
other skills based programs
On-spot Access to Services
• Referrals to Swadhar Grehs of WCD, Shelter homes of DAY-
NULM and other such residential facilities
• Health checkups at the Centre.
• On the spot bank linkages, form filling services, ATM
operation though ULB level bank networks
• Linkages with BOCW welfare boards
• ESIC linkages of registered factories
Dual purpose of CLC led on arrival support
Proposed Engagement

27. • Systemic requirements to recognise – make the invisible visible
• How to ensure what they are entitled to is available anywhere any
time
• How their engagers can be made enablers
• How to ensure place identity – where will they stay
• Reforms to enable visibility
Way forward

28. Thank you

29. Ahmedabad
• There are approximately 1.3 to 1.7 million labour migrants in the city.
• Over the years they have come to be identified with specific sectors – tribal
migrants from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan form the construction workforce;
seasonal migrants from Bihar are head-loaders and cart pushers; migrants from
Uttar Pradesh dominate as factory workers and drivers; Oriyas are mostly
associated with plumbing work, and the diamond cutting industry is made up of
people from Saurashtra.
• These seasonal migrant workers have carved spaces for themselves in the most
inhospitable places in Ahmedabad. The choices are varied: rented rooms, open
spaces, slums, pavements, worksites, etc. While the rented rooms are severely
congested, open spaces are insecure arrangements exposed to the public gaze
and eviction drives by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The most
vulnerable of these are the seasonal migrant workers who live on the worksites
themselves – while it helps them save money, it also makes them available for
work 24 hours a day.

30. Ahmedabad
• Unfair models and practices in the migrant job market
• Migration from different parts of the country to the city of
Ahmedabad has formed numerous channels of exploitation.
Recruited from villages through an elaborate network of contractors,
migrant workers end up being a vulnerable workforce that can be
subjugated and disciplined easily. The system has become so openly
abusive and brutal that migrants find it easier to find work in other
states rather than in their own. The contract labour system and a
loose monitoring and regulating state apparatus has only helped
strengthen these unfair models and practices in the migrant job
market.

31. • https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/india-has-139-million-
internal-migrants-we-must-not-forget-them/
• “India’s Internal Labor Migration Paradox The Statistical and the Real”, WB,
2018
(http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/429181519662555108/pdf/
WPS8356.pdf)
• “Multiply Urban ‘Growth Engines’, Encourage Migration to Reboot
Economy”, CPR, 2019 ( https://www.cprindia.org/news/7853)
• “Firefighting the pandemic is inadvertently teaching India how to govern
migration”, CPR, 2020 (https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2020/firefighting-
the-pandemic-is-inadvertently-teaching-india-how-to-govern-migration/)

32. • “Often migration has been seen as a symptom of distress
and something to be forestalled. However, it can equally be
an instrument of economic and, especially in India, social
emancipation.”
• Migrants constitute 35.5% percent of the workforce
(Census, 2001)
• An enhanced understanding of mobility could inform policy

34. Severe inter-generational implications, transferring
vulnerability, poor health and low level of skills from the
parents to children

35. 12.58 million short term migrants lived in rural India
(NSSO 2007-08)