A report cum case story on the situation of the stranded migrant worker during Covid-19, Locked-down

                                                                                   
                                                                                                           Written by: Me(Surendra)

     

"Ab to gharhi ne kuchh karela padtai…( Now we have to search a livelihood option at home itself…)" – Voices of Chuchrumanr village

       

Chuchrumanr village is located 15 km from the Chhattarpur block. This village, which comes

under Palamu district of Jharkhand, is a tribal dominant. A total of 110 households reside in this

village and the population is around 609 individuals, with the almost equal ration of Male and

Female. This village is locally famous for the resourceful and pictorial Matkhani check dam. The

major livelihood options of the households and its average annual remuneration are given

below:
   

Sr. no	Name of the occupation	No. Of household involved	Average annual income (Rs.)
1	Agriculture	110	12264
2	Farm-based labour	15	20000
3	Seasonal migration	60	31850
4	Daily based labour	35	70000
5	Goat rearing	69	2609
6	Non-timber Forest Produce	40	24000

Agriculture is the primary occupation of the villagers from Chuchrumanr. It is primarily done for the fulfilment of household food security. A total of around 167 acres of village land is under agricultural cultivation. The major crops sown are Grains and Pulses. Kitchen garden-based vegetable cultivation is done in around 60 odd households. Goat rearing and Non-timber Forest

Produce (NTFP) is another source of key income. As depicted in the above table, season migration is adopted by members of 60 households. While surveying the households and having a discussion with a few elderly members of the village, we found out that 24 individuals from 19 households had migrated to cities and were presently trapped and stranded due to the lockdown imposed. These individuals were working as a labourer in factories and building construction site in Gujrat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, New Delhi and Rajasthan. Some of the households are involved in daily wage earnings at the nearly stone crunchers quarry sites. Few households are also earning by breaking stones boulders in their farm or common lands and its sale to the quarry site, where various sizes of stone chips are being prepared.

      The lockdown has forced the shutdown of all  

quarry sites. The present situation has not only 

stopped the earnings of all the daily wage based 

and migrant workers, but it

has pushed them into a world of uncertainty with

tremendous worries about their future livelihood 

options.

Pitamber Singh, who was earlier working in a 

factory in

Maharashtra (Raigarh district), is one of the lucky

individuals who managed to return home before

lockdown was imposed. He has a family of ten members and in spite of having land he is forced

to adopt migration. He said that “Maharashtra se mahine-mahine khat pit ke mota-moti 16-17

hazar bhej dev hali…lekin ab kaise hotai…ab to gharhi ne kuchh karela padtai” (From

Maharashtra, I used to work hard and used to send home 16 to 17 thousand monthly…but what

will happen now…now we have to search a livelihood option at home itself).