30th Annual Conference of Gabeshana Chakra Puri Date 22 & 23 January 2023 Venue: Annapurna Rangamancha, Grand Road , Puri Theme : Understanding Inequality in Odisha

Rural India was already in deep crisis. The post-reform period was marked by a process of uneven economic growth. Rural India was changing but in an uneven manner. The gap between rural and urban India was widening. Agriculture was undergoing a significant transition. The post-reform period has been marked by an increased informalisation of employment in India. The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the country off-guard and starkly exposed the existence and plight of a vast number of migrants who had been surviving in the interstices of a highly segmented urban informal sector. Extensive media coverage has to a good extent undone the invisibilisation of the magnitude of migrant labour force in India. From the point of view of economic migration, the pandemic has struck not just as a health emergency but more so as the unveiling of a chronic rural crisis that is extremely ill-prepared to handle the reverse exodus of thousands who have returned to the villages. The pandemic was unanticipated. But it revealed the vast inequalities that characterise the Indian economy and society. The nation-wide lockdown imposed on 24 March 2020 within a short notice meant an abrupt loss of livelihoods for a vast majority of informal workers. Unable to survive the drastic reductions in their earnings, savings and consumption, many migrants started to move to their home states and districts amidst the lockdown. Because of the lockdown the transport and communication had completely been closed. Finding no other alternatives, they started walking back to their homes. This created a humanitarian crisis, not seen since the days of partition of India.As migrants have started returning to their villages, rural India is facing a severe and unprecedented crisis. This report is a modest effort by a group of young researchers to document the conditions of migrant workers and others during the pandemic in villages they were familiar with. In many cases, the researchers studied their own villages, where they were staying after the educational institutions were closed down. Apart from the migrants, the researchers also interviewed farmers, agricultural labourers and service holders in the villages to know about the ways through which Covid 19 has impacted their livelihoods. They made an attempt to triangulate the information collected through these interviews but we were not always successful.

Discussions on migrant women workers are missing from governance initiatives. Therefore, a Webinar has been organized by Development Research Unit Gabeshana Chakra today at 4p.m. to discuss this vital issue.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour. This is a document on Covid -19 and Migrant labour Prepared by Citizen Action Group, Odisha.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour. Here is a copy of the memorandum prepared by Citizen Action Group ,Odisha.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour. Here is a research tool to conduct a survey on returnee Migrants developed by Shri Rajesh Mahapatra.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lockdown was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour. This is the report on migrant labour from Khariar Bloc, Odisha.

This is the Registration Form.

On 24 March 2020 when an all India lock-down was declared by the Prime Minister with only a four-hour notice, as a necessary step to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus in India the section of Indian people that was hit the hardest about their location and livelihood was the migrant labour. In trying to respond to their plight, social workers, government officials and scholars have tried to study the phenomenon and suggest measures and help get some concrete assistance. The Migrant Labour Initiative(MLI) of the Development Research Institute (DRI) of Gabeshana Chakra has been actively discussing, sharing and intervening in the case of the Odisha workers during this period. Covid-19 has put the migrant labour in the most miserable condition bringing forth new challenges. Several notes have been prepared and shared. Questionnaires have been prepared to collect data. Memorandums have been prepared by Citizen action groups. DRI has planned to put them together that will make a few general points about concepts, data and the larger perspective.

The theme of the DRI-NCDS-AnSI Research Methodology Workshop, 7Feb-21Feb2020 is 'Contemporary Research Methodology: Theories and Practices'. The venue of the programme is Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies., Institutional area, Gangadhar Meher Marg, Bhubaneswar-751013 Please Contact: Prof. Swarnamayee Tripathy, Contact no. 9438013946.

Gabeshana Chakra Website: www.gabeshanachakra.org launched by Professor Debiprasanna Pattanayak at NCDS on 7 January 2020 at 12.30