As Migrants Flee, A Labour Crisis Looms

Hundreds of similar small and medium enterprises all across the country are staring at an extreme shortage of skilled labour

- Gurbir Singh

The owner of a small potato wafers unit in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum pocket in Mumbai, does not know how to get his unit started even though he has permission. His entire workforce of around 40 has walked out on him without notice. And why not? They had no stake in this coronavirus-blighted city, not even a rented hut in Dharavi. They stayed as ‘guests’ on daily wages in the mezzanine floor of the small scale unit. Presumably, they have all gone back to their villages. The question bothering the owner now is: where does he get trained workers from at short notice?

Hundreds of similar small and medium enterprises (SMEs) all over the country, and big ones too, are facing the same crisis. Labour seems to have disappeared.

When the lockdown became operative on March 25, no one had imagined the migrants’ crisis. For the last two months, a human tragedy of unspeakable proportions has played out —millions upon millions fleeing the cities to get to the safety of their ancestral homes thousands of miles away. They are on foot, on cattle carts, on autos and more lately on ‘Shramik Special’ trains. They are dying of hunger, of accidents. But for now they don’t care; only so long they can get ‘home’.