India was placed on lockdown starting 24 March 2020. Borders were closed in some areas. All states were affected due to the lockdown but the following states have been highly affected: Gujarat, Maharashtra, MP, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, and Jammu & Kashmir.
As the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in India rises, the challenges and issues of informal workers are also increasing at an exponential rate. The government of India is taking several measures to curtail the spread of the virus as well as to address the issues and challenges of the informal workers. However, with such a large population and over 93% of the workforce in the informal sector, it is a humongous task.
SEWA, the national implementing agency of APFP in India, continues its efforts to connect to as many members as possible to hear their day-to-day challenges, offer them moral support, and wherever possible, appeal to the local, state as well as national government to find a solution to these challenges.
Along these lines, some of the examples of current challenges faced by SEWA’s members from various trades in the informal sector in the urban and rural areas are as below:
Most of the workers from the informal economy are facing a severe cash crunch. While the government is providing wheat, rice, and sugar, women need cash to purchase other household groceries and also to pay the rent and utility charges. The government has also initiated cash transfers in informal workers’ bank-accounts. However, due to increasing COVID-19 positive cases in rural areas, the local authorities have intensified lock-down enforcement–prohibiting anyone to visit banks/ATM for withdrawing cash.
Additionally, with winter crop harvested, small farmers who have access to irrigation, need to start sowing millet. However, due to cash-crunch, they are unable to pay the laborers and therefore have to sow the field themselves. The process becomes painstakingly low as only one person is allowed to work in the field at a time. If the same situation continues, farmers would not be able to manage the farm activities on time, which could affect their productivity. Generally, millet is grown by farmers for the annual household consumption. If this crop is affected, the farmers will be pushed into starker poverty.
Large farmers sell their cotton/castor immediately after harvesting in January/February. Because of this, there is a dip in the price. Since the small farmers have lesser volume, they tend to stock up their cotton and sell it in March when the prices start increasing. They use this income to cultivate millet in their fields in March. However, due to the lockdown, these farmers are unable to sell it and hence, experiencing a severe cash crunch.
Although the government has allowed ginners to start operations, the ginners do not have laborers (generally migrants) or cash-supply to start operations. Additionally, given that the next steps in the value chain – e.g. the spinners are not allowed to start operations yet. Therefore, the ginner has space/cash constraint and hence cannot purchase from small farmers or start operations.
Construction workers from Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), and several other states like UP, Kerala, Rajasthan, and Bihar haven’t got any work for weeks now. Most of them have moved back to their villages. Since transportation was completely shut down, most of these workers walked back to their villages, which are almost 300 to 1000 kilometers.
With support from the local authorities, several small farmer members of SEWA have set-up food-camps along the highways passing through their villages for feeding these workers walking back to their villages. More and more such acts of humanity are being seen, especially coming from poor rural workers across the country, which proves that the poor do not need charity.
Urban wholesale vegetable markets have been sealed and shifted to towns about 40 kilometers away from Ahmedabad city. Street vendors from urban areas are forced to wake up at two in the morning and queue up in front of these markets in neighboring towns to access their stock of vegetables. Also, throughout the day, they are not allowed to stand at a place and vend but have to continuously keep moving. This is severely affecting the health of the workers, especially considering the fact that they have reduced their food intake to manage the cash-crisis.
The government-run PDS shops operate only for a two-hour window on a first-come-first-serve basis and distribute ration to only 25 to 30 people per day. Enforcement is stricter for men and they are barely allowed to come out of homes. Therefore, women staying on the outskirts of the villages have to walk several kilometers to reach the PDS shops and this too within the short two-hour window. Several SEWA members had to queue up in front of the PDS store for 4 to 5 days before they got their share of ration.
Member-owned and managed social enterprises like Kamala, SEWA Trade Facilitation Center, RUDI, and Van Laxmi Ecotourism center have received several orders for making meals and dry snacks for distribution to poor, masks for distribution in communities, etc. in the urban areas. However, depending on the spread of the infection, the local authorities change the lockdown rules on a day-to-day basis, and hence, they are unable to deliver the orders in time.
The domestic workers in several states have been asked by their employers to either stay in their gated communities or stop coming to work. Most of the domestic workers are women, who also have their own household responsibilities. Therefore, they could not accept the offer and hence, have lost their livelihoods.
To avoid the spread of the virus, most of the waste recyclers are not allowed to go for door-to-door waste collection – thus losing their daily livelihood since the lockdown. If the lockdown situation gets extended further, these workers might also lose their livelihoods permanently.
Garments do not fall under essential services and hence, the entire home-based industry related to the garment value chain is completely shut-down. Even those women who are own-account workers are unable to work on producing their stock due to the unavailability of raw materials.
There is widespread panic among the small farmers about COVID-19 and hence, although the government has relaxed the lockdown for small farmers to transport and sell their produce in the towns/cities, the farmers are worried about catching the infection (which is currently very less in rural areas). They are not willing to travel to urban areas to sell their vegetables. This fear and panic have impacted their livelihoods bringing down their income by almost 50% to 70%.
The instances of increased domestic violence and mental/psychological ailments have increased due to the lockdown. More details about the same are mentioned in the accompanying note.
Most patients with COVID-19 symptoms are isolated for 2 to 3 weeks depending on the symptoms. There are also myths about the painful COVID-19 test and symptoms. This results in a general panic among rural workers and children. Due to this fear and panic, they are not ready to visit doctors even in case of any other health-related issue, until it aggravates.
Due to cash-crunch, many poor families have cut down their regular medications for chronic diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, heart ailments, etc. without consulting the doctors. Due to this, there is a sudden aggravation in their ailments. At the same time, most of the local hospitals are reluctant to admit/treat other ailments to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection. This is leading to the deterioration/aggravation of ailments of several poor workers.
These issues and challenges faced by the women workers from the informal economy across 18 states in Gujarat are just the tip of the iceberg. Hearing stories and interactions with the members makes us believe that this is just the beginning and the worst is yet to come.
As the issues and challenges of the workers have evolved over the past weeks, SEWA had also evolved its relief and rehabilitation. Below are SEWA’s current actions for pandemic prevention and management as well as livelihood stabilization of informal workers:
In the very first couple of days of the pandemic, SEWA converted the messages from WHO, UNICEF, and the government of India’s health department into colloquial voice-based messages and started sending it out to informal workers to spread awareness about the pandemic. These messages covered topics like symptoms of COVID-19, myths, precautions to be taken, etc.
SEWA conducted drawing, story-telling, song-writing, and slogan contests for children to increase awareness about COVID-19. Children of SEWA members have produced over 5,000 creative posters describing the COVID-19 crisis and spreading awareness regarding the same. To incentivize the children, SEWA has started distributing e-books and stationary vouchers which can be redeemed after the lock-down to the children submitting entries to the contest.
SEWA conducted a mask-making contest for informal sector women workers to increase awareness about COVID-19 prevention. SEWA’s members have produced over 200,000 masks–working from their homes and distributed these within their families, communities, government authorities, and local hospitals.
SEWA created educational posters about the pandemic symptoms and preventions as well as myths and facts and circulating them through web-based apps like WhatsApp, Kaizala, and other social media platforms. The posters and voice messages have also been shared with the local authorities as well as ASHA workers to increase its spread. SEWA has also requested local authorities to post print-outs of these posters at local PDS shops where rural workers are regularly visiting.
With panic and fear about pandemic increasing in the villages, people have stopped approaching healthcare facilities for other ailments. This is leading to aggravation in common ailments in rural areas. Therefore, SEWA has also started working on creating voice-based messages regarding the prevention and management of other common ailments.
SEWA is also working on establishing a telemedicine platform, to facilitate easy, affordable, and reliable access to health-care advisory for informal workers.
Since the small farmers growing vegetables are not willing to travel to Ahmedabad for selling their vegetables out of fear and panic, SEWA has established a value-supply chain for small farmers growing vegetables – wherein small farmers aggregate their produce at the village level, which is then transported by SEWA to city. These vegetables are then sold in the urban areas through the RUDI and Kamala Kiosks as well as by SEWA’s urban street vendors – thereby ensuring income security to both small farmers as well as street vendors.
To ensure sustainable operation for its member-owned social enterprise RUDI and Kamala, SEWA has established RUDI-Kamala kiosks and contact-less delivery in urban gated housing communities, where local residents can order grocery, dry snacks and bakery products through WhatsApp and pay through mobile wallets.
In rural areas, about 500 women trained to make nutritious food have started making dry snacks, which are healthy and nutritious. These nutritious snacks are distributed in the villages with the support of local authorities through kiosks set-up near the PDS shops. Thus, the rural children and their households get nutritive snacks and the women find meaningful livelihoods.
SEWA has made a list of various government schemes and subsidies and also facilitates linking the members in distress to a suitable government scheme and subsidies.
For over 65,000 salt-pan workers in the Little Rann of Kutch, who urgently needed to weld a certain tool to their tractors for strengthening their salt-pans, SEWA appealed to the local government and facilitated opening a few welding shops. This helped the salt-pan workers to strengthen their salt-pans in time–thereby preventing a loss of INR 20,000 – 30,000 (USD 268 – 400) per salt-pan workers.
For the cotton farmers, SEWA appealed to the state government to allow the operations for the spinners in the cotton value chain, so that the ginners can get rid of their existing stock and start purchasing from the small farmers.
SEWA is also working on setting up a war-room to collect structured qualitative as well as quantitative data about the economic losses faced by the informal workers. This data will be helpful to SEWA, the government as and other stakeholders as they will have to start framing policies/programs for stabilizing the informal workers’ livelihood post-COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to these actions taken by SEWA for addressing the current challenges faced by its members, SEWA is also working on implementing several long-term actions for the economic rehabilitation of its members. Some of these actions are as below:
To ensure economic rehabilitation, sustained livelihoods, and psychosocial wellness of members and their communities, not only during this crisis but also beyond, SEWA will work on the following long-term initiatives:
- Restructure supply chains of SEWA associated enterprises:Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SEWA associated enterprises are facing challenges in their operations from altered market conditions and changing customer demands. SEWA will review and streamline existing systems, processes, supply chains, communication channels, and technology for these enterprises in order to position them to meet evolving customer needs. The focus would be to ensure minimal disruptions to the supply chain in the future, make the processes more efficient, and introduce additional technology where necessary.
- Rebuilding livelihoods for informal sector workers: SEWA believes that work is a healer. Therefore, to restore the livelihoods of its members and better prepare them to gain full employment post the economic slowdown, SEWA will focus on vocational and technical training, skill upgrade, and building of new skills for members across different occupations. SEWA will also train members on financial inclusion, use of digital wallets, and leveraging technology in day-to-day work.
- Creation of Livelihood Recovery Fund: One of the biggest challenges for informal sector workers is cash flow. Hence, SEWA plans to establish an integrated financing framework for rural communities. The innovative financing mechanism will be a fund that aims to provide immediate support in the event of a calamity by helping farmers recover and stabilize, additionally facilitating them to engage in long term mitigation by receiving the knowledge, technology, and resources to cope with the increased risk posed by climate change. Such a fund could be a blend grant, equity, patient capital, soft loan with a longer-term moratorium, insurance, etc. This intervention is designed to provide women-led rural enterprises impacted by climate shocks or disasters with cash flow support, prevent debt trap with money lenders or other informal credit sources, and allow women to hedge risks.
- Children Engagement Program: SEWA will launch a series of initiatives aimed at meaningfully engaging and educating children during the lockdown and in the immediate aftermath. The goal is to design learning activities for children that are fun and interactive and could supplement their school curriculum. The initiatives will range from awareness on coronavirus, biodiversity education, food and nutrition, and building vocational skills among children through posters, story and creative-writing contests, awareness creating songs, mini-games, etc.
- Preventive health, mental health, and wellness: SEWA has already launched two wellness centers that provide comprehensive primary care coverage to members. The centers specifically focus on reducing the incidence and managing non-communicable diseases (diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, thyroid disorders) by promoting healthy lifestyle practices. SEWA intends to scale these wellness centers (one center for a cluster of 5-7 villages) across the country to ensure that communities have access to preventive and holistic medicine.
Additionally, SEWA will establish Community Learning Business Resource Centers (CLBRCs) as unique, holistic, community-based enterprises that use information and communication technology (ICT) to design and implement pioneering services for innovation and empowerment–especially for illiterate people and youth. The CLBRCs apply business principles and technological applications to operate as financially independent entities, respond to community demands–from SEWA members and others–with fee-based training and services that generate income, especially for young people, and link communities to resources. SEWA proposes to replicate this CLBRC model across all 18 states in India. Each CLBRC will house a preventive, curative, and mental health and wellness center staffed with a cadre of health workers trained by SEWA. The health workers will promote wellness in the community, effectively identify emerging mental health issues, provide basic counseling, and share relevant educational material where needed.
- Prepare Action Plan on Digital and Financial Inclusion: SEWA will study the feasibility and prepare an action plan for adopting digital payment systems and digital wallets/Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for transactions. SEWA will evaluate different systems/wallets, requirements, existing telecommunication, and internet infrastructure challenges to adoption, and best practices in implementation.
- SEWA bazaar: While SEWA is a family of a membership-based organization – several members produce/offer services under their own brands or unbranded – there are several SEWA members who are still not members of any cooperatives or social enterprises. They work as self-employed / entrepreneurs in their own individual capacities. These tiny and micro-entrepreneurs are unable to access newer markets or withstand changes in the economy. Therefore, to broaden their market access by deploying technology, SEWA is planning to launch SEWA members’ own Digital Social Enterprise – the SEWA Bazaar.
Such an enterprise will provide these tiny and micro-entrepreneurs access to a broader market, within and outside SEWA. It will enable building a common/collective identity and brand in the market, thereby eliminating internal competition amongst the members and providing everyone with an equal opportunity to grow. Many products required by the customers shall be made available in one place, online or in a shop, thereby increasing the customer base and outreach.
Also, in addition to providing broader market access to the tiny and microentrepreneurs, this digital social enterprise will also throw-up several modern tech-savvy employment opportunities like logistics and management, barcoding, packaging, quality control, photo-shooting, cataloging, inventory management, warehousing, etc.
COVID-19 Relief Campaign of SEWA Madhya Pradesh
SEWA Madhya Pradesh has been working tirelessly for the Covid-19 Relief Campaign, which helps and supports the informal sector workers and migrant workers in the 16 districts of Madhya Pradesh. This relief campaign is being run by our grassroots community leaders and organizers.
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