LABOUR MIGRATION : CONCERNS AND SOLUTIONS

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Labour migration is an important factor affecting the course of socio-economic development in India. Accelerated movement of people originating mainly from the rural and backward areas in search of employment has been one of the most important features of the labour market scenario in India during the post-Independence period. According to the 1991 Census, 226 million persons have changed their places of residence within the country.

Such large scale labour migration obviously has raised a number of concerns in relation to the social and economic policy frame work in India. Concern has been expressed over the economic, social and political marginalisation of migrant workers, especially of those unskilled people moving from relatively deprived and depressed areas in search of gainful employment and living.

Nature of Labour Migration

Labour migration is a complex phenomenon and encompasses different streams which vary in duration, nature of origin and destination areas and characteristics of migration process.

The nature of contemporary labour migration can be examined at various levels depending on the degree and extent of vulnerability to which the migrant worker is exposed. These levels are- migration for survival, subsistence, sponsored migration and voluntary migration. The migration for survival denotes the extreme economic and social hardships faced by labourers in rural areas to whom migration becomes an outlet as a part of their strategy for survival. The migration for subsistence denotes a relatively better situation for rural labourers. Here, the labourers are vulnerable in terms of seasonal unemployment and poverty. Hence, they migrate often for short period to nearby regions. Sponsored migration is the typical initiative emerges from the employer’s preference for long distance migrant workers. In many instances the employer through the contractor pays an advance which is deducted from the wage earning of the migrant worker. In voluntary migration the initiative emanates from the migrant himself. The migrant usually bears the cost of migration and expects to find employment with the help of networks based on kinship, caste or village. Chain migration is typical instance of this type of migration.

Besides, four broad patterns of internal migration can be identified as rural to rural migration, rural to urban migration, urban to urban migration and urban to rural migration. Within these different streams rural to rural and rural to urban migration have been the predominant patterns of migration. It is important to recognise that since 1980s, a lot of migratory movement is also taking place between urban centres.

Magnitude of Migration

Of the 226 million persons who changed places within the country as per the 1991 Census, only 17.3 million or 8.8 per cent persons are reported to have moved for employment reasons. Several studies and reports on migration, however, have indicated that the Census data suffers from several limitations while estimating labour migration for employment. The main limitation is that the data ignores or severely underestimates short duration and seasonal/circular migrants. The extent of this under reporting is very clearly brought out by the National Commission on Rural Labour (1991). The Commission estimates more than 10 million circular migrants in the rural areas alone. These include an estimated 4.5 million inter-State migrants and 6 million intra-State migrants.

As majority of the occupations in which migrant labourers are engaged do not prefer women workers, most of migrants are males who migrate individually. This is, however, not the case in certain occupations in which family migrations is cheaper for the employer. Sugarcane is a case in point. Brick kiln and construction are other examples which attract family labour. Majority of the migrants belong to the backward and schedule castes as well as scheduled tribes being either landless or too poor.

The major reasons for migration of labour include accelerated development of capitalist form of agriculture i.e. non-participation of family labour among the rich and middle peasants and changes in frequency of cropping due to the adoption of advanced technology in agriculture. Reduced demand for permanent labour due to mechanized farming and marginalisation of farmers and artisans in rural areas due to resource constraint and compulsion to augment their earnings by seasonal labour also affect the migration. Other reasons which cause the migration are failure of land reforms, depletion of resource base for tribals, high rates of population growth in the rural areas, increase in the proportion of landless labourers and lack of adequate expansion of non-farm employment.

Exploitation

The migrant workers are generally exploited. They are made to work for long hours and the wages paid to them are lower than the local labourers , in fact, below the level of prescribed minimum wage. Taking advantage of their illiteracy and poverty, middle-men practise exploitative recruitment practices and in many cases, retain a major portion of their wages as their own commission. Moreover, wages are adjusted only at the end of the season and workers are paid some advances, which are not at all sufficient to meet even the basic requirements.

The conditions of women labourers are far more unsatisfactory. Contrary to provisions of equal Remuneration Act, women migrant labourers are invariably paid lesser wages as compared to their male counterparts in many sectors. Sexual exploitation of the women migrant labourers especially the tribals is also a matter of deep concern.

Most of the migrant workers reportedly live in conditions below the minimum accepted standards without adequate shelter and toilet facilities. In most places, migrants stay in make shift shacks or in the open and have no access to safe drinking water. In the urban areas, shortage of open space and harassment by local musclemen add to their misery.

In addition, migrant workers do not have access to the public distribution system or other municipal services. Their non-inclusion in electoral rolls also deprives them of political patronage and results in their extreme political marginalisation.

The employers and contractors also adopt exploitative practices against the migrant labour. They employ various methods to circumvent the provisions of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (ISMW) framed by the Centre in 1979 to regulate the employment of inter-State migrant workers. The contractors, inter-alia, split their establishments in such a way so that licence is not required as envisaged under the Act for employing more than 5 migrant workers. The contractors also evade the provisions of the ISMW Act by registering migrant labour with the local employment exchange and then contend that ISMW Act does not apply.

A major shortcoming of the ISMW Act is that it does not apply to those migrants who undertake migration on their own and also to long distance migration whether voluntary or sponsored within the state boundaries. Thus, a significant proportion of migrants are excluded from the purview of the Act.

Secondly, the effective implementation of the ISMW Act hinges on its Section – 20, which provides for appointment of inspectors to inspect whether provisions of this Act, in relation to payment of wages, conditions of service and facilities are being complied with. But none of the State governments have evolved any institutional modalities for carrying out inspections outside States for enforcement of the Act.

Initiatives

Migrant labourers need appropriate interventions programmes by the Central and State governments and various social partners and NGOs to ameliorate their lot. The first and foremost requirement is the creation of a reliable information system for labour migration. It has been observed that macro level data is often inadequate to capture the flow and pattern of migration. Much of the work of providing welfare and effective implementation of existing legislations are stymied by the absence of accurate information on the conditions of employment, magnitude and composition of various streams of migration. Apart from estimating the magnitude of migration, the database should also generate information pertaining to vital aspects like causes and emerging forms of migration, processes of recruitment, occupational profile of migrant workers, their skill profile, working and living conditions; expenditure and remittance patterns of migrant workers and status of enforcement of legislations like the Minimum Wages Act, and the Equal Remuneration Act. The database has to be developed both in relation to important sending and receiving regions.