Social and Economic Uncertainty among the Industrial Migrants during the COVID-19 in India

COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis that has put the entire world economy at a halt. The impact of COVID-19 has gone beyond public health to social and economic issues, especially for migrant workers. To tackle the spread of COVID-19 virus, like many other countries, the Indian government has also implemented various lockdown measures which severely impacted industrial migrants who lost their jobs due to shutting of industries. Due to this economic slowdown, about 40 million migrant workers of the country are facing the major issues like lack of social security and health benefits, lack of portability of state-provided benefits and lack of social equality. The issue of future uncertainty in the urban cities during total lockdown period led the migrant workers to travel back to their hometowns. The present paper explained the environment of social and economic uncertainty among these industrial workers during the pandemic situation. It also attempted to bring the attention of the policy makers on the issues faced by the migrant industrial workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic situation.