Giving Compass' Take:

• Ashif Shaikh, writing for India Development Review, explains why governments requiring lockdowns in India need to offer other support services for citizens that need it. 

• How can donors play a role in providing these services or working with the government? 

• Read about the impact of COVID-19 for rural India. 

The construction and agricultural sectors contribute eight percent and 16 percent to India’s GDP.2 The construction sector alone employs 51 million workers directly; these are the men and women who have built our roads, flyovers, factories, and plush buildings enabling our lives to function and the economy to grow. About 90 percent of these workers work on temporary contracts. Many of them also alternate as daily wage workers on farms when construction work is unavailable.

Economic depravity in India is often related to social inequality, with many of these workers belonging to Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes, and other backward communities. When the announcement of the lockdown was made, no references were made to the millions of migrant workers who were living away from their homes, in tin huts in invisible labour colonies, and surviving on daily wages.

The COVID-19 epidemic is one of the largest shocks to the Indian economy, the impact of which we are just about starting to experience. However, the response to fight the spread of the virus cannot begin and end with the lockdown.

It is the responsibility of the state to bring public, private, and civil society actors together to capitalise on their strengths and ensure that we do not kill our own citizens while fighting the virus.

Based on our practical experience we plead for the following:

  • Public appeals to be made by political, religious, and social sector leaders to be supportive of migrant workers who are trying to get to their homes safe and sound.
  • Ensure the wide availability of safety gear (soaps, sanitisers, masks) to relief workers, government employees, and workers in transit.
  • Arrange transport in collaboration with state- and privately-owned bus operators to transport migrant workers in a safe and secure manner to testing centres.
  • Provide passes on an urgent basis to civil society organisations who want to provide relief.

Read the full article about lockdowns in India due to COVID-19 by Ashif Shaikh at India Development Review.