Pravasi Bandhu: a positive change after two years

As Bhura Bhai Maida started his work at the construction site, he was apprehensive about getting his full payment as promised by the contractor. Bhura migrated from Banswara, Rajasthan in search of a better life.

“I went to Vapi in Gujarat to work on the construction sites and worked there for four months.” But when the time came for the payment, his apprehensions came to reality as he was partially paid and assured to get his balance payment soon. Upon his return, Bhura made several attempts to get his payment, but the contractor ignored him.

Bhura lost all hope, but one day he attended the sensitization training of Pravasi Bandhu on migrant rights. He informed the organizer, i.e., the SJVS team, about his challenge of partial payment and similar issues with other masons and laborers. The team escalated the matter with Ms Preema Dhruve of the Aajeevika Bureau working for the migrants.

The Pravasi Bandhu team, with the help of the Aajeevika bureau, provided Bhura bhai with an advocate who helped him file the case and followed up with the contractor. Eventually, the contractor agreed and paid the rest of the amount to Bhura Maida and his co-workers.

Bhura Bhai was fortunate, but this is the plight of tens of thousands of migrants who travelled thousands of miles for their livelihood and got cheated.

Pravasi Bandhu has made significant progress over the last 2 years by assisting, supporting, and protecting internal migrant workers and creating awareness of safe migration. Caritas India has documented the responses of hundreds of migrants to evaluate the changes in value from the baseline.

Caritas India spoke to 419 migrants, including Bhura Bhai, in the source states about safe migration, and 70% of the respondents reported positively. Similarly, 68% of respondents said they have knowledge about ensuring necessary documents, having information about living conditions, health care, education, and relevant documents, as well as having enough savings to cover the cost of living and other expenses, which are important for safe migration. This suggests that people recognise the importance of being prepared and informed before undertaking migration to ensure their safety and well-being.

On the positive side, the Pravasi Bandhu program has improved their access to government social protection programs like e-Shram, MGNREGA, and labour cards, which they had little to no access to before. Work under MGNREGA recorded the highest registration with 78%, followed by Ayushman Bharat at 35% and e-Sharam at 38%. However, at destination states such as Delhi, Gurgaon and Goa, E-shram accounts to 80% of registrations of the total respondents interviewed, followed by 27.5% of registrations into the BOCW board.

The programme has looked into different community skill-training programmes to increase their income. While men are interested in training in livestock, women have expressed an interest in tailoring. The community in the states of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh has identified safe migration as one of the important interventions that the programme is implementing.