Lakhs of migrant labourers from Odisha’s Ganjam district working in Gujarat’s Surat have suffered the scourge of diseases like plague and AIDS in the past, apart from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They have nevertheless faced grave odds to provide much-needed financial support to their families. Most of them work in Surat’s textile industries.
Diminished status
In 1994, the Surat plague outbreak compelled their exodus back to Ganjam. At the time, society here viewed them with suspicion and fear. Since the first HIV+ case was identified in Ganjam in 1996, migrant workers have also been associated with the incidence of AIDS in the district. Ganjam is the most HIV-prone region in Odisha and the majority of infected persons are migrant workers having a link to Surat. This further diminished their social status.
At present, due to the COVID-19 threat, and the loss of jobs and incomes, they are returning to Ganjam in large numbers. Again, they are being branded as carriers of disease and looked down upon by their fellow villagers. A few of the workers, known to have links to crime, have travelled from Ganjam to Gujarat, or vice versa, to escape arrest, which has additionally made locals suspicious about them as a community.
‘Inhuman conditions’
Lokanath Mishra, convenor of ‘Link Workers’ Scheme’, a project for Odia migrant workers said, “Decline in income and economic status of these workers in Surat has also been a reason behind their loss of social status back home. Modern communication has enabled people in Ganjam know the inhuman living conditions of migrant workers in Surat.”
Lack of employment opportunities near home forced more workers from Ganjam to travel to Surat in large numbers since 2004-05. This reduced the scope for the enhancement of their wages in Surat’s textile units. In 1993-94, a worker would earn ₹100 for making a hundred metres of cloth. In more than two decades, their wage has only doubled, which is a barely minimal increase, if continuing inflation is taken into account, said Mr. Mishra.
Added to this, migrant workers have never had any job security, leave or a prescribed minimum wage. The days they would spend at home were always conflated with the loss of jobs and payments, also detrimental to their social status.
Staying away
Tutendra Sahu, a former migrant worker turned peer leader to link migrant workers to government schemes and HIV prevention projects said, “In Talasara panchayat of Kodala block, there are several migrant workers who have registered to return home for the first time after gap of over two years. Similarly, in Gangapur panchayat of Aska block several returned migrant workers had not preferred to return home for over a year. Most of them are unmarried, male migrants. There are very few females among the present Surat returnees.”
Social organisation ARUNA estimates that around 6 lakh migrant workers of Ganjam district, most of them working in Surat, send approximately ₹2,000 crore to their families every year. Beguniapada-based social activist Pramod Kumar Jena said, “They manage to do this by minimising their [living] expenses to the extreme at their workplace.”
Almost all of them are now in institutional quarantine to reduce the scope of contagion through them. So far, 21 persons have been tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Ganjam district. They have all returned from Surat and are in quarantine.
“Most of them earn less than ₹15,000 per month but send around ₹1 lakh annually to families in Ganjam. Like [the Hindu deity] Neelakantha, they swallow their troubles,” said Mr. Sahu.