This PPT delivered to team of eGovernance Foundation - Bangalore discusses various aspect associated with life and livelihoods of Urban Poor in India

1. Reimaging Life
and
Livelihoods for
Migrants and
Urban Poor
eGov Talks – 10th September, 2020
Dr. Ravikant Joshi

2. Several national, state missions/schemes to address vulnerabilities of the urban poor
Economic vulnerabilities
● DAY-NULM, MoHUA led Microfinance and
Self –help groups based institutional credit
● NSKFDC, Ministry of Social Justice
● Plethora of loan instruments
Residential Vulnerabilities
● PMAY: MoHUA-led Housing for All
● DAY-NULM led shelters for homeless
Occupational vulnerabilities
● Ministry of Labor and Employment-
uniform Labor code for unorganized sector
workers and access to social security
schemes
● Individual State specific welfare boards for
unorganized workers
● Specific ministry led insurance schemes
Social vulnerabilities
● Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs –
NULM formation of SHGs
● Ministry of Women and Child welfare led
targeted approach on Gender based
welfare programs
● Ministry of Health and Family Welfare led
targeted approach towards health
measures
BUT………
Lack of or no
integrated
approach to
address urban
poverty,
Lack of policy on
urban poverty
alleviation,
Lack of institutional
structure,

3. Issues of Identification and Enumeration
No uniform criterion for identification
of urban poor
• SECC data of 2011 highlights numbers and has
addressed multi-dimensional nature of urban
poverty by quantifying various vulnerabilities
(residential, occupational and social)
• Data is static, not updated
• For NULM beneficiaries, states use their own
criteria to identify beneficiaries, ranges from
BPL list/ NFSA/Ration card/ Income criteria /
Visible poverty criteria / Self applications
• Eligibility varies from < Rs 27,000 income per annum
to < Rs. 2lakh per annum
• No National uniform definition of urban poor

4. Urban Poor - Issues of Identification and Enumeration
No uniform principle for beneficiary
identification by National urban
programs
● Ayushman Bharat- through select criteria
from SECC-11 data
● DAY-NULM- urban poor as identified by the
States as per their respective definitions
● PMAY(U)- based on EWS and LIG criterion
(Household income Upto Rs 3 lakh and Rs 6
lakh respectively)
Non participative mechanisms to identify
urban poor
• As compared to gram Sabha which actively
participates in identification of poor households,
institutional challenges in urban areas

5. Swachh Bharat Mission
DAY-NULM PMAY
ICDS Urban Health
Street Vendors
Disjointed data sets across programs and
schemes
No portability of data across states or sometimes
even cities – linked to domicile status

6. Blind spots in data
Poorest of poor and Vulnerable populations
such as sanitation workers, rag-pickers,
transgenders, homeless have not received
attention
An attempt under DAY-NULM:
• States directed to fix annual targets min.
@ 10% to form SHGs of vulnerable
occupation groups, especially sanitation
workers
• Sanitation SHGs to be linked to dignified
livelihoods opportunities by:
• Mapping for skill training
• Extending Subsidized loans under SEP
• Registration of sanitation workers at
CLCs

7. These were Seasonal Migrants - Invisible in the Census and in
national sample surveys… and consequently to administrators
Invisibility of Urban
Migrants

8. Blind spots in data
Migrants – are excluded from
most schemes
Eluded from enumeration at all
levels – no clear estimates
Estimates vary from 100 million
to 180 million
Under this pandemic around 30
million went back to their native
state
Short term, Circular migrants
trend, among the poorest of poor

9. Based on NSSO’s 2007-08
survey, a short-term
migrant is one who ‘stayed
away from the village/town
for a period of 1 month or
more but less than 6
months during the last 365
days for employment or in
search of employment’.
The short-term migration
cycle, however, can be
longer than six months.
The Indian statistical
system is not designed to
capture such temporary
migration and as a result
policy makers remain
unaware of its extent and
likely increase
Seasonal / short term migration

10. Migration in India
Key sending states – Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, Jharkhand Odisha, Rajsthan,
West Bengal and North East States
Key destination states – Kerala,
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi and
Karnataka

11. Major Sector employing
Migrants
Construction Sector (40 mn)
Domestic Work (12 mn)
Textile Industry (11 mn)
Brick Kilns (5 mn)
Mines and Quarries
Small Manufacturing
Agriculture and food
processing
Headloading
Hotel Dhabas and Restuarants

12. Name of the Scheme Eligibility Criteria/ Scope of the Scheme Inclusive for
Migrants
AMRUT (Provides adequate sewage networks
and water supply)
The Census data forms the key policy thrust
PM Awas Yojana (In-Situ Slum Redevelopment) Have to be in settled in Notified Slum Settlement
In case, migrants live in notified settlement, domicile and ownership documents
required
National Health Mission
(Primary health centres, other health welfare
provisions )
Primary health care facilities are free
Access to welfare schemes to those domicile document
Integrated Child Development Scheme- Urban
(Cash benefit to pregnant and lactating mothers,
Swadhar Greh, Anganwadi, take home ration
and nutrition schemes)
Only to those women with district domicile, who can produce Ration card and
bank account details to prove this.
DAY- National Urban Livelihood Mission
(Access to skills training, financial inclusion, bank
loans, shelter services, welfare provisions or
street vendors)
SECC data – Slightly more inclusive and Census data
Skills Training requires State domicile of the candidate + domicile of any city
within the State
Defines homeless as -anyone living on pavements, under bridges and on
construction sites
Forming Self help groups, bank linkage, loan applications require domicile
documents
Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban Scope extends to notified and de-notified slums

13. Labour Migration – Mobility + Informality
• Undocumented movements and recruitments
• Urban exclusion is stark and manifest itself on
many fronts – social rights and urban public
provisioning
Mobility
• Informal and segmented market, work is
undocumented and casual
• Recruitment and employment is mediated
through long chain of contractors and
middlemen
Informality
Labour Migration
The twin
phenomenon results
in to vulnerable
movements –
Seasonal, Circular,
long distance, single
male, family based,
distress driven,
forced bonded etc.

14. No Policy Response, No
regular mechanism
• Limited portability of social rights
• ISMW Act 1979 – single piece of existing
legislation, largely absolute and no
machinery for implementation
• Dichotomy between urban governance and
labour governance
• No means to assert political agency
• Low end, hazardous work, largely insecure
and irregular work
• Most unskilled with little or no opportunity
for advancement in value chain
• Sub-survival wages, less than minimum
wages, no social security
• No recourse of legal aid in case of non-
payment, fraud
• Weak enforcement and regulation of
worker’s rights and entitlements

15. • The political class ignores them because they don’t count as votes,
especially in the case of inter-state migrants.
• Due to their mobile nature, they don’t find any place in the
manifestos of trade unions.
• The low interstate portability of identity documents can make it
difficult for low-skilled interstate circular migrants to claim the
benefits that they are entitled to under labor laws.
• And finally we all ignore them because it is not our concern !!!
The city (including We all) fails to notice them

16. Capacity of ULBs to
undertake poverty
alleviation and
migrants’ welfare
Human resource crunch:
• most schemes are implemented by
ULB’s core staff. NULM HR
provision is the same for cities
above 5 lakh; so Mumbai and
Bhavnagar will have same number
of staff.
• NULM Institutional structure at
present does not provide staff
structure for almost 3000
statutory towns with less than
50,000 population. Staff of
adjacent bigger city expected to
take care of such small towns.

17. Capacity of ULBs
to drive poverty
alleviation
Need platforms and sensitivities of
city managers to engage with them
as partners
Implementation of 74th CAA for ward
sabhas and Area Sabhas under
JnNURM
Shehri Sahabhagita Manch, under
DAY-NULM as a platform to bring
together ULBs and community
together

18. To sum up
Lack of universal criteria / definition and lack of enumeration of urban poor including
migrants and their settlements in the city, Lack of portability of various schemes
Weak Institutional and Individual capacities of labour department and ULBs to drive
migrants rights urban poverty alleviation in cities
Lack of information among urban poor and migrants about their eligibility and entitlements
Need for an integrated approach to work with the urban poor and migrant workers

19. Government Response to Migrants Issue
• The Government response till date as we know has been in terms of
• Arranging and transporting migrants from cities to their homeland
• Increasing MNREGA budget by Rs. 40000 crore to provide work to returnee migrants
• Rs. 50000 crore Job Guarantee Scheme (PM Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan) for migrant
workers in rural areas of six states where most of the migrants have returned
• One nation one ration card to facilitate migrant’s life in cities
• Affordable Rental Housing Scheme in partnership with private sector
• Urban Employment Guarantee Program is being cotemplated
• UP / Uttarakhand have set up Workers’ Employment Commission for
Migrant Workers
• Bihar Govt has undertaken survey to map skills of migrants to provide them
jobs
• Maharashtra Govt created job portal to give jobs to local
• Governments are responding at various levels in various ways – but
inadequately

20. We need them safe- to ensure our survival

21. How do we get them back? .. We need them for sustaining city’s survival

22. How do we facilitate them?… They are non existent in the systems How Cities Can be made inclusive ?

23. Reimaging Life and Livelihoods for Migrants
• Setting up Migration Facilitation Centers to enable self-registration, access to
social protection and dispute resolution
• Universal access to social rights delinked from domicile status, tenure security or
employment status in cities
• Profiling of migrants against safety net and welfare schemes and getting them
covered / served as per illegibility
• Identification, enumeration and recognition of migrant settlements across living
typologies to ensure basic public provisioning
• Legal responsibility for public provisioning must be shared between the states
and employers – Kerala Guest Workers / Public Rental Housing Scheme
• Greater autonomy, resources and responsibility to ULBs to develop
contextualized response to migration – in – flow
• All these measures backed by right integrated technological solutions

24. Reimaging Life and Livelihoods for Urban Poor
• Adopting policy on UPA, separate Ministry – nationwide institutional
structure, legislative mandate and right technological solutions
• Adopting a unified centrally driven identification and certification of the
urban poor to link them to access the benefits of GOI led welfare schemes
and State led welfare benefits.
• States can have additional criterion for recognizing urban poor and layers
of welfare and safety net schemes

25. Reimaging Livelihoods and Life for Urban Poor
• Real time application system for urban
poor certification and registration – can be
made on any day of the year on an online
portal and in physical form in designated
offices/centers on any working day
• Individuals (Elected Representatives
(Member of Parliament, Member of
Legislative Assembly, and Municipal
Councilor or any government officer) and
authorized collectives of urban poor and
NGO to have powers to recommend any
Indian living in urban areas having family
income less than Rs. xxxxxx per annum for
urban poor certification and registration to
designated authority prescribed by
government of India.

26. Plethora of schemes, but no single window, lack of understanding to
access schemes and know eligibility

27. Plethora of schemes, but no single window, lack of understanding to
access schemes and know eligibility

28. Reimagining Life and Livelihoods
for migrants and urban poor
Thank You