Dr. Sucheta Sardar
Lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister on the 24th of March, asking people to stay at home initially for 21 days. Later, it was extended by 19 more days and now another 14 days. The measure came to follow the guidelines of WHO saying “social distancing” or more aptly “physical distancing” to prevent the spread of the contagious Corona virus. Almost all the developed countries by this time were adversely affected and thousands of casualties were being reported every day. Lockdown seemed to be the only way to combat the fatal Covid-19 disease. Developed countries around the world were under full or partial lockdown.
In India, though lockdown was welcomed by many, it brought sudden distress to a huge chunk of the population. The socio-economic factors of a developing country like India are much different from the developed world. Merely implementing the rules followed by the developed countries without taking into account the differences along with inadequate plans has led to massive complications. The government, during the announcement, kept majority population, belonging to poor and marginalized sections of the society, completely out of the considerations. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey report (2017-18), 80 percent of the workers in India are casual laborers and self-employed and less than 10 percent work in the formal sectors. When lockdown was announced, within few hours all transport and other economic activities came to a complete halt. Millions lost their jobs immediately even before they could make some arrangements. Though, government requested not to cut down payments and employment, however, it is applied only to formal and organized sector having work from home facilities and to very few in the informal sector.
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Despite a very early and the most stringent lockdown in the world, India still sees rapid increase in positive cases. One reason behind this is the presence of high income inequality. A majority population in India does not have even the bare minimum necessary living condition. Millions of urban people live in slums and jhuggis. According to the 2011 Census, 13.9 million households with around 65 million people live in urban slums and jhuggis. As per the Handbook of Urban Statistics, this comprise of around 17.4 per cent of all urban population in India. From 2001 to 2011 there has been a 25 percent increase in India’s slum population. The top five states with highest slum dwellers are Maharashtra (11.8 million), Andhra Pradesh (10.1 million), West Bengal (6.4 million), Uttar Pradesh (6.2 million) and Tamil Nadu (5.7 million). Among the four major metro-cities, Mumbai has the highest share of 40 percent, Kolkata 30 percent, Chennai 29 percent and Delhi 15 percent. The population density varies around 3 lakhs to 1.25 lakh people per square kilometers in slums.
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Figure 1: State-wise Percentage share of slum population to urban population
Source: Handbook of Urban Statistics, 2019
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The mechanism adopted to prevent the spread of infection requires maintaining physical distance of minimum one meter between individuals. In the western developed countries, quarantine and maintaining physical distance is not much difficult whereas, in developing countries like India, physical distancing is a rare dream to people living in a small room with family of at least five members with the adjacent rooms belonging to other families and sharing common bathroom and water facilities. More than 61 lakh (45%) urban households dwell in one room and 6 lakh have no exclusive rooms at all. About 47 lakh (34%) and 60 lakh (42%) households do not have access to toilet and water facilities within premises. With overcrowding settlements, poor sanitation, common water points, toilets and narrow pathways, it is impossible to maintain physical distancing? Further, with little access to running water, regular washing hands and maintaining hygiene becomes difficult.
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While implementing WHO guidelines to flatten the graph, all these were not taken into consideration. Proper planning from the government like repurposing all the existing buildings and empty lands available with the Centre, State and Local governments for temporary settlement of these people at an early stage could have controlled this rapid community spread. Mumbai’s Dharavi is the largest slum in Asia with a population of more than 15 lakh and is one of the biggest hotspots in the country with around 800 positive cases and 21 reported deaths till now. Slums in Delhi, Kolkata and other big cities are turning out to be hotspots every day. Although the Covid-19 is spread across the world through people who could afford to travel by airplanes and cruise ships, the virus now threatens the poor and vulnerable section of the society. They are standing at the frontline of health crisis bearing the entire burden.
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The conditions of migrant workers are even more serious. With no jobs, no means to sustain livelihoods and no means to reach their villages as borders are closed, desperate labours resort to walking hundreds of miles with family and kids. Some died out of exhaustion, some met with accidents while some died from starvation. It is very recently that government took initiatives to send them back, however questions remain as to how would they afford train fairs with no means of earnings for more than a month.
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The casualties from Corona is a matter of concern worldwide and hence officially recorded while, the casualties due to starvation or distress are not taken into account officially. With the desperate attempts of the migrant workers to reach home and reports of starvation deaths, the government announced a relief package of INR 1.7 lakh crore during the first phase of lockdown (which amounted to 0.8 percent of GDP) whereas the other countries, affected by Covid-19, are spending much higher as relief package. Among the G20 countries, Japan allotted 21%, United States 11%, Australia 10%, Canada 8.4%, Brazil 6.5% and France 5% of GDP[1]. Though it is a welcome move, however, given the large proportion of population falling in the poorer section, this amount by now seems inadequate to address the challenges faced by them.
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The third phase of lockdown is announced and yet no further announcement of relief packages is made by the government for these people. Though some relaxations are announced in the green zones yet that comprise a miniscule part of the total lockdown. The green zones mostly fall in the less developed districts with little economic activities which would not bring much change in this depressed economic situation. The more economically active districts are falling under red zones, primarily the high slum dwelling states of Maharashtra (14), Uttar Pradesh (19), West Bengal (10) and Tamil Nadu (12), are kept under strict lockdown rules. It is extremely essential for the government to address the needs of this section of population or it might end up causing more casualties due to hunger and distress than by Covid-19.
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The distress dwellers in such scenario need two things on immediate basis: adequate food and cash transfer. This should be provided universally to every person who needs it without any exclusionary criteria such as ration card or biometric. Many do not possess ration card registered at the place of current residence and hence are not getting the stipulated ration. It is essential to ensure that food packages reach all those in need of it. Higher allocation of funds and resources targeting the states with higher proportion of migrant and slum dwellers is important. Propensity of spreading the virus is extremely high in these areas and needs special attention. Ration should be provided at door to door basis so that people do not frequently go out of their house which would limit the spread, ensure proper water and sanitation facilities, mask and hand sanitizers are to be distributed on regular basis. This can be done through local administration and involving community participation.
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Though covid-19 pandemic knows no boundaries, racism, class and caste yet the rich can be saved by maintaining physical distance staying quarantined in their own homes, storing sufficient amount of food and essentials for months while the poor, not having proper place to live or food and money to buy the bare necessities, are suffering the most. They are in desperate need of money and would frequently come out of house in search of some form of earning for survival and hence become more prone to getting affected by the contagious covid-19. Even if the poor manage to protect themselves from the fatal disease, they are failing to fight the even more fatal disease of starvation and hunger. Hence, like all other diseases, covid-19 also discriminates between the rich and the poor.
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The author works as Consultant in Oxfam India and HomeNet South Asia
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Reference
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