Fighting for a Foothold

Context: NITI Aayog’s draft migrant policy report identifies the problems but fails to address the policy distortions which lie at their root.



SDG 8.8: the protection of labour rights and providing a safe and secure working environment for all workers, particularly migrants.

NITI Aayog’s draft policy on migrant labourers: (including informal sector workers)

• Recognizes the role and magnitude of migrant labours:
  • It states that a sound policy must be viewed from a “human rights, property rights, economic, social development, and foreign policy lens”.
  • Reiterates that a rights-based and labour rights perspective built around the core issue of the dignity of labour, fulfilling ILO commitments and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
  • Recognizes the failure in data collection: to capture the growth in their numbers, particularly the numbers of circular migrants.
  • Identifies vulnerabilities of migrant workers:
    • Invisibility and political and social exclusion to informal work arrangements,
    • Exploitation, denial of labour rights and lack of collective voice,
    • Exclusion from social protection, formal skills, health, education, and housing.
    • Reflects on the need for pro-poor development and provision of livelihood.
  • Proposes governance structure: with the Ministry of Labour as the nodal ministry acting as a focal point for inter-ministerial and Centre-state coordination.
    • Proposes mechanisms for coordinating the effort on inter-state migration, especially on principal migration corridors.

Miss outs of the draft policy: Areas which it failed to address -

• Unequal development: (as the primary cause for labour migration) – argued by The National Commission for Rural Labour in 1991.
  • Disparities and inequalities in development have caused unchecked migration and the adverse inclusion of migrants in labour markets.
• Lopsided urban development strategy: which is catered to national and global capital, resulting in marginalization of the poor, particularly the migrants.
• Skewed emphasis on social security: It prefers to rely more on enhancing the capabilities of migrants rather than cash transfers, which has led to a denial of social security benefits.
  • Social security is acknowledged as a universal human right in international covenants to which India is a signatory and is given due place in the Constitution.
  • The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), 2006 that providing a minimum level of universal social security was financially and administratively feasible.
• Concerns with labour rights and labour policy:
  • Puts grievance and legal redressal above regulation and enforcement.
  • Ignores new labour codes: which have tilted the balance in favour of capital, weakening the bargaining power of labour and debilitated enforcement system.