Coronavirus outbreak: What the states must consider

Lockdown 2.0 and after

A storm is gathering and a sense of disquiet is palpable amongst migrant workers stranded far away from home and family, in state after state. With the lockdown 2.0 in force, the long road to normalcy will bring further trials and tribulations to the considerable migrant population. An estimated nine million people migrate within India every year from endemically backward regions, to large cities in search of livelihood. In the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, it is the migrant workers that are the worst hit and face the severest privation. In the best of times, they are vulnerable to exploitative practices -- manipulation in wage rates, non-payment or withholding of wages, long work hours, and abysmal work conditions -- but now their problems are existential, and truly confound them.

The recent protests by migrant workers at the Bandra railway station, Mumbai, and in Surat, demanding trains to take them home, in open defiance of the lockdown, and in the face of the grave risk of being infected by coronavirus, should serve as a grim reminder that in the war against the pandemic, migrants are in danger of being left behind. Remember, too, that there were similar protests in Kerala and Delhi in March. ‘No state for migrants’ seems to be the cry amongst these poor, dispossessed workers.

The underlying narrative is that the migrants who constitute the invisible workforce in our bustling and burgeoning cities, have been forsaken by their benefactors and rendered helpless. Faced with double jeopardy -- a decline in the wellbeing of their families back home and unable to meet their own basic needs in our vast, impersonal cities -- there are a million mutinies in the making, and should bring a sense of foreboding.

The fragile sense of order in the midst of an aggressive pandemic can easily slide into disequilibria should governments fail to respond to their rights-based entitlements -- food, shelter, water and sanitation. Failure to act with urgent institutional measures can transform the sense of disquiet amongst the migrant workers into widespread social unrest. That this is a matter of concern became clear when the Union Home Minister, no less, spoke to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra to highlight the urgency to act. Other states would do well to respond with an equal sense of urgency.

What might the states do in the immediate to short term?

First, universalise the Public Distribution System to provide food security and access to essential commodities to migrant workers in urban areas and to other daily wage earners in the informal sector. There is no more extensive social welfare net that can provide at least calorie intake protection than the PDS network. Providing food coupons or temporary ration cards can help substantially, and this can be operationalised with little effort. By this, the states would demonstrate strong welfare responsibility for the poor and the disadvantaged. Of what use is the massive stock of food grains in the Food Corporation of India godowns -- often rotting, eaten by rodents, or simply pilfered -- if not drawn down at times like these?

Second, expand the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme to include provision of work in the cities and the towns for the urban poor, including the migrant workers. The already widespread problem of unemployment, especially of those who are at the lower end of the skills value chain -- the uneducated, unskilled or low-skilled workers -- has exacerbated due to the lockdown and can morph into a humanitarian crisis. The harsh reality is that for the vast majority of these workers, there is no recourse but to State-supported employment guarantee to sustain their livelihood. There is no reason why the nature and scale of work offered under the programme should not be constructively interpreted in its spirit -- of providing livelihood wage labour for at least 100 days in a year to those most in need of it.

Third, enlarge the scale and scope of social security pensions provided to the widows, the elderly and the differently abled. Unlike in the western world, India does not have a tax-funded comprehensive social security system that guarantees an unemployment allowance in times of need. This is perhaps the time when the states should consider a Direct Benefit Transfer of a minimum basic income to those below the poverty line in the urban and the rural areas alike, as an emergency facility, during and for the periods of unexpected crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The social protection benefits that are fragmented across several schemes and departments can be rationalised, consolidated, and with a specified top-up amount, transferred directly to beneficiaries.

All three measures will require considerable resources. In these severely resource-constrained times, where will the states mop up the revenue from? The economic consequences of the pandemic will continue to affect us over the short to medium term. The states’ own tax and non-tax revenues will be severely hit. A revenue-led mobilisation strategy is not an option. Instead, states must seek to rationalise and prioritise expenditure. The focus in the current financial year should be entirely Covid-19-centric, and on committed expenditure that is absolutely essential, with all other expenditure guillotined.

In most states, salaries and pensions account for between 33-40% of revenue expenditure, with many states running revenue deficits. It would be justified in this time of crisis for the states to consider a 10% cut in salaries and pensions of government employees, as a stopgap measure for the next three months. This will appear a harsh step, but we live in extraordinary times and we must share the burden together. After all, as Adam Smith famously said, “parsimony and not industry is the immediate cause of the increase of capital,” and the states must perforce learn the virtue of parsimony.

(The writer is Director, Public Affairs Centre, Bengaluru)