The High Court of Bombay has lately taken suo motu cognisance of the exploitation of the intra-State workforce that migrates seasonally from the drought-affected and water-scarce areas of Marathwada to the sugar-belt area of western Maharashtra. Maharashtra is likely one of the prime sugar producers in India. According to the Maharashtra Sugar Commissioner, in 2022-23, the online space below sugar cane was 1.487 million hectares, and there have been 203 crushing factories in the State that had been anticipated to provide 138 lakh metric tons of sugar.
Sugar-belt shocker | The monetary and sexual abuse of Maharashtra’s migrant workforce
Though intra-State migrant employees kind the spine of the sugar cane business and financial development, they’ve remained critically marginalised and oppressed for a number of many years. Considering the precarity of this migrant workforce, the High Court requested the Maharashtra authorities to kind a committee of officers from numerous departments (with one nodal officer) to handle their points. Against this background, it will be important to look at how ‘seriously’ the State develops insurance policies and persistently implements strategic measures and present labour legal guidelines for the efficient inclusion of this precarious migrant group.
To take care of the extended unemployment after the sowing of rabi crops, thousands and thousands of small and marginal peasant households from Beed, Jalna, Osmanabad, Latur, Nanded and Parbhani districts of the Marathwada area migrate to the sugar-belt districts akin to Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Satara, Solapur and Ahmednagar to work in sugar cane harvesting and factories. Prolonged drought situations, repeated crop failure, debt, and acute unemployment create an end-most scenario for Marathwada’s rural labour, and, finally, they should migrate seasonally. Therefore, there must be a long-term and complete coverage to handle their vulnerability at each the supply and vacation spot.
The State authorities has to intervene in the prevalent exploitative construction of recruiting migrant employees in the sugar cane business filed by the ‘Mukadam’ (labour contractor). The Mukadam has a contract with sugar factories to produce ‘Koytas’ (labour {couples}) and takes an advance to pay employees. The Mukadam system assures sugar factories a provide of a giant quantity of non permanent, low-cost, dependable, and environment friendly workforce (Breman, 1978). Because of eco-political causes, the Mukadam system stays the focus; migrant employees are very depending on the Mukadam. Consequently, it creates satisfactory house to manage migrant employees, violates labour legal guidelines, and is unfavourable to determine any relationship between the manufacturing unit and employees.
Gaps in the information, plight of girls, youngsters
Inadequate knowledge is the stumbling block in framing significant insurance policies for seasonal migrants, particularly when ladies migrants and kids are largely invisible and un-enumerated. Hence, a periodic and time-bound enumerating train is important to create a databank of seasonal migrants that’s credible. A technology-aided Migration Tracking System (MTS) utility was launched in 2022 by the Women and Child Development Department of the Maharashtra authorities, which was stated to be the first-of-its-kind venture in the nation.
The MTS initially centered on seasonal migrants in the tribal districts to enumerate and observe youngsters, pregnant ladies, and lactating moms at supply and vacation spot areas to make sure diet, immunisation and early childhood care, and continuity of the Integrated Child Development Services.
However, the MTS fails to create a complete image of seasonally migrating households, their present employment standing, wage construction and entitlement protection. With expanded scope, the revised MTS can be utilized in the State’s sugar belt and different seasonal migration corridors to enumerate migrants, perceive the dynamics and clearly delineate the precise wants and interventions.
Another excessive precedence space is addressing the plight of migrant ladies employees, and making certain their well being, security and employment in the sugar cane labour market. In the sugar cane harvesting process, ladies employees are engaged in strenuous work akin to headload cane bundles and carry heavy weight (40 kg-45 kg) on vehicles or trolleys, which normally happen late in the night, ensuing in a number of accidents through the loading course of (Oxfam India 2020). Their work adversely impacts their physique, inflicting musculoskeletal problems and several other gynaecological points. UNESCO famous that early and compelled marriages amongst migrants trigger issues for adolescent women, ensuing in early pregnancies (15-17 years), deliveries in the absence of a educated start attendant, frequent childbirth, no unique breastfeeding for the primary six months and lots of different issues. Many research have reported recurring violence and sexual harassment circumstances linked to the Mukadam and male employees. Despite a number of vulnerabilities amongst seasonally migrating ladies, the State authorities has not adopted any satisfactory long-term intervention technique.
Though the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emphasises equitable and inclusive training for all, the Right to Education of kids who accompany their mother and father to sugar cane fields is violated blatantly. There are not any ample different education fashions, which in flip have an effect on their training. They are most likely pressured into youngster labour. In their joint research, the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and UNICEF (2022) noticed that regardless of these youngsters being bodily absent from college, college data don’t acknowledge this in many circumstances.
Need for presidency interventions
There must be intervention to make sure that seasonal migrants have entry to justice and are assured protected and wholesome working and dwelling situations. The State authorities should take the lead and collaborate with completely different Ministries and Departments to formulate focused and time-bounded interventions. With a robust political will, it’s doable to create a beneficial authorized atmosphere to guard the rights of migrants by strengthening the labour administration. On the one aspect, it’s stated to be an Amrit Kaal with the imaginative and prescient of an empowered and inclusive financial system to fulfil all its humanitarian obligations, whereas on the opposite, State functionaries always neglect a trial of the large teams of seasonal migrants, leaving them helpless and in jeopardy. One should cease this deceit and take particular motion.
S. Irudaya Rajan is Chair on the International Institute of Migration and Development, Kerala. Kuldeepsingh Rajput is Senior Research Fellow on the International Institute of Migration and Development, Kerala
