Inclusion of Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala and Lessons for India
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Inclusion of Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala and Lessons for India Benoy Peter1 · Shachi Sanghvi1 · Vishnu Narendran1 Accepted: 21 September 2020 © Indian Society of Labour Economics 2020
Abstract An estimated 3.5 million interstate migrant workers have become an indispensable part of Kerala’s economy. The state also offers the highest wages for migrant workers for jobs in the unorganised sector in the entire Indian subcontinent. Further, the state has evolved several measures for the inclusion of the workers and was able to effectively respond to their distress during the national lockdown. This paper examines labour migration to Kerala, key measures by the government to promote the social security of the workers and the state’s response to the distress of migrant workers during lockdown, by synthesising the available secondary evidence. The welfare measures as well as interventions initiated by the state are exemplary and promising given the intent and provisions. However, some of them do not appear to have consideration of the grassroots requirements and implementation mechanisms to enhance access. As a result, the policy intent and substantial investments have not yielded the expected results. The state’s effective response to the distress of workers during the lockdown emanates from its overall disaster preparedness and resilience achieved from confronting with two consecutive state-wide natural disasters and a public health emergency in the immediate past. While the government has played a strategic role through policy imperative and ensuring a synergistic response, the data presented by the state indicate a much larger but invisible role played by the employers and civil society in providing food and shelter to workers. Keywords Labour · Migration · Inclusion · Lockdown · Kerala · India
1 Introduction Ahead in demographic transition among Indian states, Kerala has evolved as one of the most attractive destinations for migrant workers from the rest of India. The state offers the best wage rates for workers in the unorganised sector in the * Benoy Peter [email protected] 1
Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), Perumbavoor, India
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The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
country, manifold compared to most other states (Labour Bureau 2020). The state, which registered replacement level of fertility three decades of ago, has two districts already registering negative population growth (GOK 2019a). Interstate migrant workers have become an indispensable part of the state’s economy. Almost all economic sectors that require arduous physical labour are dependent on migrant workers. This also includes sectors such as marine fishing that requires highly skilled labour. Estimated to be about 3.5 million in 2018, migrant workers hail from all over India (GOK et al. 2018). While the rest of the states struggled to address the distress of migrant workers during the national lockdown to arrest the COVID-19 pandemic, Kerala was able to ensure food and shelter to wor
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