It is well known that majority of the internal migrants are found in the construction industry but its size can be gauged from the fact that it is the largest employer in India after agriculture with around 33 million in its labour pool. Another staggering fact is its contribution to the nations GDP which, at 8-8.5%, is second next to agriculture. Considering its enormous size, one should assume that employment under this sector assures certain amount of security. However the informal natures of job search and employee-employer relations leave workers at the receiving end when it comes to welfare and security. The problem is more acute since majority of the workers are migrants who are exploited owing to their lack of information of the formal rules governing their employment and providing for security.
Migration from fields to cities in search of employment is not a recent phenomenon but what adds to it is the fact that most of the migrants are farmers, semi-skilled or mostly unskilled and land up in cities in search of livelihood options. This raises the question of the effectiveness of the rural employment generation programs in stopping this internal flow and the resulting exploitation at the destination work place. But that’s a different issue of debate. What needs to be focused on currently is how do to make the resulting environment of the construction workers more humane.
The construction sector, in absolute terms with investments worth around 8.0% of GDP in 2012, up from 5.7% in 2007. Given the high amount of backward and forward linkages it has with large number of ancillary sectors, its sheer size in terms of the number of people employed comes as no surprise then. What is though surprising is the fact that only 23% of the workers employed in this sector are registered with their respective state welfare boards. The government of India enacted the ‘Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act in 1996 providing for levy and collection of cess on the cost of construction with a view of augmenting the resources of the respective welfare boards of the construction workers. The aim of the respective welfare board is to utilize the cess collection for skill development and training of the construction workers and their children. As of 2012-13, however, only 12.6% of the total funds collected were spent on the workers welfare. Going by state-wise data, the top five states on the basis funds collected were -Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. Even for these states, the percentage of expenditure from the total funds collected varied between 0.2 -2percent. This is only one part of the story. The dichotomy reveals when we compare it data with worker registration. The top five states with based on worker registration with the welfare boards were- Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Barring Tamil Nadu, the rest of the states are origin (sending) states for migrant workers with most number of construction workers coming from Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh.
The above data tells while workers register at their respective states of origin the welfare funds are collected at their places of work which is in another state. After the contract expires, the migrants head back to their native places and hence, not in a position to avail the benefits of the welfare amenities. Moreover, the Welfare Act states that workers will be registered if they have been employed for 90 days or more. However, workers are contracted on hourly employment basis and are excluded from the registration formality. Contractors also have to abide by the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 which is aimed at regulating the conditions of work for migrant workers. The informal system of hiring by the contractors based on social networks at the place of origin of migrants aids them in bypassing registration formalities.
In the cities, people in the high rises will hold these workers responsible for the squalor and filth but the truth is, the migrants are made to live in shanties without access to basic amenities. No drinking water, open toilets, lack of work safety and absence of social security for the workers’ families. According to an International Labour Organization (ILO) report, India has one of the highest numbers of accident rates among industrial workers at 165 injuries per 1,000. With all the laws and regulations in place, such amount of rampant exploitation needs immediate consideration. When farmers turn to manual jobs with the hope of paying off debts, they don’t envisage the high costs that will have to be borne for migrating to cities.
Aritra Chakrabarty
As a social researcher, I believe in knowledge-based policy action. With a postgraduate degree in Development Studies, I've been associated with social issues in my professional space. As a part of SHRAMIC initiative, was involved with data creation, sourcing of resources that will become the knowledge bank of this project.
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