Abstract
Gujarat is one of the major migrant-receiving states. This chapter is based on a study of migrant workers in two Gujarat cities, namely migrant workers in construction and textiles in Ahmadabad and in the diamond cutting industry in Surat. The catchment of migrant labor varies with the industry. Most of the textile workers in Ahmadabad are from three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar, whereas most of the diamond cutting workers are from Gujarat. The skill requirements, and along with that the remuneration and conditions, of work vary. Among construction workers with low skills, one-third end up with accident insurance and social security. This study also put forward how distress migration could be turned into healthy mobility of labor and how to use it for forging linkages between migration and development.
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Notes
- 1.
This paper is based on our large study on “migration and Development: A Study of Rural to Urban Temporary Migration to Gujarat State” sponsored by Sankaran Chair at NIRD, Hyderabad.
- 2.
Earlier studies on migration have also found similar observations (Deshingkar and Start 2003, for example, found that the scheduled tribes had higher migration rates in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Revealed same observation in their study in Chhattisgarh. Devi, Geetha and Gomathi (2009) have found higher ratio of migration in backward community is because of having limited income opportunity at their origin state.
- 3.
A total of 47% migrant workers are landless and majority of workers in each caste category belong to same land owning class. About 48% of the migrant workers are landless which confirm that about half of total population move towards cities due to the less opportunity in agriculture sector.
- 4.
These are the payment of wages act, the minimum wages act, the workmen’s (employee’s) compensation act, the contract labour act, the maternity benefit act, the interstate migrant workers’ act, the building construction workers’ social security act as well as social security schemes and right based acts and services.
- 5.
The only social security available to some is provident fund: 2% of workers in construction work and 11% of migrant workers in textile get provident fund. Group insurance scheme provides insurance to 28% diamond workers, but this insurance is available to only 5% workers in textile units and less than 1% in construction industry. Any form of health insurance is not accessible to construction workers while it is available to 3–5% to other sector workers.
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Acknowledgments
This chapter is based on our large study on “Migration and Development: A Study of Rural to Urban Temporary Migration to Gujarat State” sponsored by the Sankaran Chair at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Hyderabad. The authors are grateful to the NIRD&PR for financial support. The authors thank the respondents for their support during the field work. This chapter is a revised version of the paper presented at the International Conference on Labor and Employment Issues in the Context of Emerging Rural-Urban Continuum: Dimensions, Processes and Policies organized by the NIRD&PR, Hyderabad, under the S. R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labor), March 12–14, 2015.
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Hirway, I., Singh, U.B. (2017). Migration and Development: Rural-to-Urban Temporary Migration to Gujarat. In: Reddy, D., Sarap, K. (eds) Rural Labour Mobility in Times of Structural Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5628-4_12
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