India has for decades lacked a formal understanding of workers in its unorganized sector. The pool of workers such as masons, domestic help, unskilled workers, and agricultural labor range between 38-41 crore and comprise 92% of India’s total workforce. Given their ‘anonymity’, they could never fully participate in government welfare schemes or demand labour rights.
Many attempts have been made by previous governments to create a database of all unorganized workers, but each attempt failed. A day before the announcement of the nationwide lockdown for Covid-19, the BJP-led NDA government admitted in the Parliament that it has no record of migrants, unskilled and agricultural laborers in the country. The impact of this lack of “information” was truly felt when the government could not identify and assist migrants trapped in cities or provide aid to the kins of those who succumbed to death while traveling to their villages on foot and trains. Rough estimates suggest that at least 971 workers died during this period. The pandemic came to become the much-needed catalyst as the Supreme Court, in response to a petition on the migrant workers crisis, ordered the government to set up a national database of the country’s unorganized workforce.
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Jitesh Surjiani
Jitesh Surjiani is passionate about progressive change for India and its citizens. He writes about issues that are roadblocks in improving quality of life and interpersonal interactions as well as areas of public governance that fall short in intent and action.
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