Supporting Informal Workers During the COVID-19 Crisis

Credit: Jency Samuel/IPSBy Vijay MahajanHYDERABAD, India, Mar 30 2020 (IPS) Farmers, agricultural labourers, and informal sector workers are the worst hit by COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns. Here are some steps that the government and banks can take to help them cope financially. According to the last published Census of India data, there are as many as 480.2 million workers in India. Of these, only 30.3 million are in the formal sector; the remaining 93 percent includes 110.9 million farmers, 140.4 million landless agricultural workers, and 210.9 million non-agricultural workers. Almost none of them get a monthly pay cheque or bank transfer. Their cash flows are dependent on them working. Agricultural workers are paid daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on their contract with the farmer. But with COVID-19 bringing transportation, mandis, and market demand to a standstill, farmers are starting to face difficulties harvesting their rabi crop. As a result, they’re likely to stop hiring farm labourers, creating a serious cash flow crunch for both farmers and agricultural workers. The same holds true for informal sector workers earning a living as a machine operator in a small enterprise, a street vendor of vegetables, a barber, a presswala, domestic help, a safai karamchari, a hamal loading and unloading goods in warehouses and transport yards, a small shopkeeper, a contract worker in a mall, and so on. At best, they may have received their wages till March 20th, and som...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific Headlines Health Labour TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news