Unlock interstate mobility to reduce migrant infection risks

The Union home ministry had issued an advisory to ban inter-state mobility of migrant workers while opening up certain economic activities in non-hotspot areas from 20 April 2020. The migrants, rendered jobless and getting concentrated in slums and relief camps in and around a few large cities in states such as Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, have been provided facilities. But these are highly inadequate. While requiring them to register with local authorities to “find out their suitability for various kinds of work” is welcome, for a majority of these migrants, covid-19 is a city affliction and an escape to their villages is a path to sanctuary.

Public awareness about the virus has, unfortunately, been tinged with social media frenzy. Any person testing positive is ostracized by even the “educated people”, and, therefore, can expect help from none. Under the circumstances, a protocol for safe inter-zonal travel is essential since a large section of the migrants want to return to their villages, at least for a few months, due to the dread of the disease and for emotional healing.

Laying down a framework for an exit plan and a containment strategy for different regions and districts in the face of increasing infections and fatalities is a challenge. The protocols during the first and second phases of the lockdown were intended to lower transmission from affected persons—mostly from covid-infected countries—to their social and business groups through social distancing. The success of this strategy can be gauged from the fact that the numbers of corona positive cases reported in high- and middle-income colonies are very low in different cities, and over 300 districts reported no corona cases during the whole month.

The six urbanized states of India—Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and West Bengal, which account for over 60% of the interstate migrants—recorded 53% of the confirmed cases. In each of these states, 25-40% of the urban population resides in their capital agglomerations. Significant parts of these cities have been declared as hotspots, necessitating a containment strategy. It is not difficult to figure out why these cities recorded high transmission rates, particularly during the lockdown. Against the national urban figure of 30%, Maharashtra and West Bengal have about 40% of their households residing in one room units, with their big cities recording even higher figures.

Furthermore, the proportion of households not having drinking water and toilets within premises in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu is 10 percentage points higher than the national urban average. Bangalore and Mumbai corporations record about 5% of households with at least one couple living without an exclusive room against the national figure of 2%. Gujarat and Delhi along with Maharashtra account for about 40% of the interstate migrants. The globalised cities and their peripheries account for much of the concentration of the deprived population and migrants living in vulnerable conditions.

The impossibility of implementing social distancing norms in cities is understandable wherein 40% of the workforce has lost or risks of losing its livelihood, and is trying to find sustenance through alternate businesses or state-provided benefits. Added to that, 35% of the households live in one room units and an equal percentage has to depend on community facilities for drinking water and toilets.

Any restriction on slum dwellers to move out of their homes or localities would only increase social proximity and their density of interaction, with people standing in queues or sitting in large groups being an inevitable outcome. Such proximity has led to an alarming rise in infections in the slums and low-income areas in mega cities that have become major hotspots, reporting the most number of new cases in recent weeks.

Unfortunately, we do not appear to have reached the peak and the dilemma between saving lives from the pandemic and the economic disaster stares at our face, rendering issues of sustaining economic growth a secondary priority. The sustainability of continued welfare and even medical support by state governments is likely to be challenged by deteriorating government finances.

Undoubtedly, there are risks in transporting migrants back to their villages. They could get infected during travel and may not receive medical attention. The question is whether the risks stemming from their current state—housed in ghettos and congested buildings in an unplanned manner, resulting in heavy crowding—are any less.

Under the circumstances, the Central government must provide them sanitized passage from their present locations to four or five transhipment points in the out-migrating states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha in a phased manner. The state governments can take the responsibility of taking them from there to the district headquarters, where they should be medically tested and quarantined, if necessary. A mobile application can be developed wherein the migrants would register their destination, reason and duration of stay, professional skills and expectations of employment within and outside the state, based on which they would be issued e-permits.

It would be unrealistic to hope that no new infections would occur but these would be few, less than what is likely if migrants are forced to stay in congested and unhygienic conditions.

The author is distinguished fellow, Research and Information System for Developing Countries