HOUSING MIGRANT: DESPERATE NEED FOR INDIAN ECONOMY
The most basic need for any human to thrive and fulfil its need is a shelter with accessibility to proper facilities such as sanitation, portable water and transit facilities. This can be seen as absent in many urban areas for millions of migrants who migrate in most cases for a temporary basis, through a contract for a particular project. As many as 17.8 million migrants moved from rural to urban areas within and across states for jobs, according to Census 2011 data, the latest available, between 2001 and 2011, the number of people migrating for work from rural to urban areas grew at the rate of 2.8% annually.
The nation’s economy is backed by service and industry sector both contributing 54.3% and 29.6% each for FY19, Economic Survey Report 2018-19. These sectors cannot run efficiently only on local availability of labour and need additional skilled people who can provide options to an employer for a better outcome and also in less cost. A huge amount of influx of migrants come from rural areas where stability and income growth is low, they provide the necessary workforce to run the economic cycle, this inflow is also beneficial for the state as a contribution of agriculture sector is less than half – 48% – of India’s net domestic product in 2015-’16, the rural economy supports 70% of India’s population, according to National Account Statistics from 2017 and the government’s latest labour survey from 2017-’18. The standard of living conditions in rural areas is observed to low with an annual per capita income of Rs 40,928 in 2015-’16, less than half the urban per capita income of Rs 98,435 other factor include, productivity gap, which is defined as the difference between the rural economy’s share in the total net domestic product and its share in the total workforce. The higher the difference between the two, with the net domestic product being higher, the greater is the labour productivity. The productivity gap in 1970-’71 was below 12%, which rose to about 13% in 2017-’18, data from the 2015-’16 national accounts and the 2017-’18 labour.
This shows the need to take into account the migration flow and infrastructure needed for the stable maintenance that the sector requires as it has grown and developed organically for years. Housing need has outgrown from all the other requirements as it is the crudest form of facility that a human needs to thrive and grow, but unfortunately, this has been neglected as after independence the country was in a desperate need for jobs as the youth were unemployed and starving. The opportunity was provided in the cities were fast unplanned development and applicants in search of menial jobs were many in numbers so the criteria for standard housing was ignored as migrants resorted into earning and saving as much as possible while spending minimum, even compromising with hygiene and health. Now after the lockdown due to the outbreak of coronavirus will end, the nation will require the backflow of migrants into cities and towns where the developer, industry owners, etc. would require them to get back to work. Also, this can act as a major opportunity for the sectors to realise the importance of luring the workers in this case providing proper housing can not only help their standard of living but also increase in productivity of that particular sector. Even the Central government has offered the scheme of Affordable Rent Housing under the PMAY(Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana) in urban areas, but private players and stakeholders should also take into account to provide a standard condition of living and maintenance of health and hygiene.
Footnotes
How State Governments Disenfranchise Interstate Migrants In India, IndiaSpends
Needed: A rental housing policy for migrant workers, IndianExpress