Omkar Rathod was thankful for the company of hundreds of fellow migrant workers as they trudged home to far-flung villages once lockdown had shut Indian industry. But he didn’t realise he would soon be competing with them for jobs. Back in his village in northern India since March, Rathod is vying for work under the world’s largest jobs programmes: the only option for the millions of migrant workers who face mass job losses in a struggling economy and a raging pandemic.
More than 82 million of the 98 million people who applied for jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act since April have secured work, a record that tops the number of new jobs created under the programme each year in India. But the scheme – worth billions of dollars – still falls far short of what is needed in a country with an estimated 100 million migrant workers. Experts say the fund – which has already been topped up – is once more close to spent.
The rural development ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but officials of five states that recorded among the highest number of applicants said they had provided work to almost every job seeker. The scheme was created to provide steady wages and jobs for people, who were in turn creating assets for their villages, be it conserving water or improving roads.It was never envisioned as a bandage in a global pandemic.
India’s estimated 100 million migrant workers were among the worst hit by India’s strict lockdown, which triggered a mass exodus from city jobs at garment factories, building sites and brick kilns.Migrant labourers took to the roads en masse and walked back to the countless villages that dot the map and offer few opportunities to earn. India’s economy shrank by almost 24% on year in the second quarter, the worst of all major economies, even as the number of Indians with the virus topped 4.2 million, exceeded only by the U.S. tally of 6.2 million.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
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