21 Days and Counting: COVID-19 Lockdown, Migrant Workers, and the Inadequacy of Welfare Measures in India

On March 25, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of Covid-19. Two days later, on March 27, volunteers associated with the Right to Food Campaign (a network of individuals and organisations in India) and the Samaj Parivartan Shakti Sangathan (an organisation that works on accessing government programmes in Muzaffarpur, Bihar) formed the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) to respond to distress calls from migrant workers in different parts of India.This report documents information collected from the calls of 640 groups of 11,159 stranded workers, up to April 13, 2020.It discusses the demographic profile of the migrant workers, the need for food and monetary relief, the ‘Rate of Hunger and Distress’ and the ‘Rate of Relief’, the changing nature of distress among migrants and ‘Social Solidarity during the Lockdown-Induced Crisis’. It includes region-wise data on migrant workers for Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi, Punjab, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar. It contains recommendations for the government on food security, wages and income support, social security, and shelter and transport facilities for four categories of migrant workers – those who have returned home, those who were trying to reach home but were stopped and sent to relief shelters, those who were trying to reach home but were stopped and are sleeping on roads and in public spaces, and those who have been living in ‘miserable conditions’ in the cities where they work.