Need to enumerate, identify and register migrant workers: Sandeep Chachra

We could have planned our response to the pandemic better, says Sandeep Chachra, executive director of ActionAid Association

Sandeep Chachra, executive director of ActionAid Association, in an email interview with Uddalok Bhattacharya, speaks of the lockdown, the tasks ahead and the changes in the foreign contribution law. Edited excerpts:

Do you think the lockdown that followed the arrival of the pandemic was done in haste? The announcement of Shramik Special trains almost 45 days after that contributed to the situation’s deterioration?
 
The pandemic merely exposed the pre-existing inequalities and precariousness of millions of people. The Shramik Special trains were an essential need. If announced sooner, they would have eased a lot of stress for migrant workers. The ActionAid Association survey of more than 11,000 workers in May showed that 10 per cent of the respondents had accessed government transport assistance by then. With hindsight, it appears we could have planned our response to the pandemic better.
 
Tell us something about the workings of the free foodgrain scheme. As part of the Aatmanirbhar package, it was announced that there were 80 million migrants. Next we heard the government had no data on migrant workers.
 
The extension of the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana to distribute 5 kg of free rice or wheat with 1 kg of pulses to the National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries till November is a welcome one. Given that food insecurity will continue into 2021, it should be extended and expanded. The lesson of the lockdown is that the public distribution system (PDS) needs strengthening.
 
There have been conflicting figures on migrant workers. In early May, the chief labour commissioner of India had estimated that 2.6 million migrants were stranded across the country, and the solicitor general informed the Supreme Court that close to 9.8 million migrant workers had been transported back home. We feel that these numbers are gross underestimations.
 
The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan had announced distributing free food grains to 80 million migrants for two months in May. This had to be extended till August because in the initial months states ran into roadblocks in identifying the migrant workers who were eligible. There is need to enumerate, identify and register migrant workers.
 
In your reports that went into the writing of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) advisory, you talked of the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan. How did the government select the 116 districts for this? Do you foresee execution difficulties with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) as a parallel scheme?
These were districts that reported large concentrations of returnee migrant workers, and they are in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha. The Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan was announced for 125 days for a focused implementation of 25 categories of public works/activities in 116 districts. The coverage needs to be expanded because these districts are not unique in experiencing depressed wages, high unemployment, and distress migration.
 
Further, the Abhiyan should not be limited by the imagination of the MGNREGS. As the objectives of the scheme include providing livelihood opportunities to migrant workers and similarly affected rural populations in accordance with their skills, in that sense, the scheme is an extension rather than one parallel to the MGNREGS.
 
How is the Rs 6-trillion package for micro, small and medium enterprises working?
 
One of the major concerns regarding the package is rather than providing immediate relief, it speaks about collateral-free automatic loans and other liquidity and equity infusion mechanisms. Only a small pool of MSMEs will be eligible for this loan-based working-capital facility. There is concern about larger firms cornering these loans and crowding out smaller enterprises. What is needed is a mechanism to check or ensure that the loans are reaching the smaller units and to link it to employment and wage protection.
 
Any views on the three farm-related laws passed by Parliament recently? Do you have any data on the number of middlemen to be affected by this?
 
The three new laws deal only with those farmers who have surplus marketeable produce and among them also those who have significant surpluses, and not the subsistence farmers. The latter constitute a significant chunk of farmers in India.
 
Even for this group of surplus producers, the three laws seek to bring changes in supply chains with the intention of passing benefits on to the farmers. While there is no doubt that procurement processes and structures needed reform and strengthening, it is unreasonable to expect that benefits will accrue without safeguards and protective mechanisms in place.
 
Farmers have repeatedly shared their concern about the price determination mechanism. Markets run by Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees play an important function of price discovery, in the absence of which it is unclear how the prices for commodities would be determined. If price setting is left to negotiation between farmers and private buyers, farmers may be put at a huge disadvantage. This also brings us to contract negotiation and enforcement. The laws are not very clear when it comes to issues of regulation and enforcement. For example, there is no process for the registration of contract farming agreements, though the Committee of State Ministers on Agricultural Reforms had recommended that state and district-level authorities could be set up for registering contract farming agreements and that any registering authority should verify the details of the contract such as the financial status of the buyer and the terms of agreement.
 
It is not clear that reduction in the role of APMCs will lead to the disappearance of the middlemen. Private companies cannot negotiate multiple individual contracts with hundreds of farmers; the costs and logistics are just too prohibitive. It is likely that traditional middlemen may assume the role of aggregators for private buyers, thereby defeating the primary objective of the reforms.
 
Finally, in what way will the amendments to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act affect you?
 
The stipulation on prohibiting the transfer of funds without the prior permission of the Central government prevents foreign contributions going to any other person or organisation. This amendment is likely to adversely impact the ecosystem of civil society organisations because most often a lot of collaboration and partnerships take place with foreign contributions being distributed among smaller organisations. Secondly, the clause about limiting administrative expenses to 20 per cent of the foreign contribution received (from 50 per cent earlier) will create a major challenge for ground work with communities.
 
The amendments are steps in a worrying direction. They will restrict the space civil society needs to have in any democracy.