Analysis Of Construction Workers Migrate From Industries

ABSTRACT In our project we discusses how migration is continuing in different parts of India and how it is becoming more and more crucial towards improving livelihood status. In 2004-05, Indian labour force consisted of about 430 million persons, growing annually at about 2% (Economic Survey, 2007). Slightly less than 3/5th of it is employed in agriculture, mostly residing in rural areas and producing a little over 1/5th of the domestic product. Cultivators form about 2/3rd of the rural workforce, the remaining are agriculture workers. Industry (mining, manufacturing, construction and utilities) employs around 18% of the workforce, producing about 27% of the domestic output. The construction industry is important for Indians rural to urban migrants. Over 90% of urban construction workers are rural migrants, and over a third of all rural migrants work in construction. The construction industry is not only particularly important, but is also different from other industries in its pay and labor recruitment practices. In common with other rural workers, construction workers have long suffered from various problems, including delayed payment of salaries and exclusion from urban social security schemes. State policies designed to deal with these problems have in general had mixed success. Partly as a result of the peculiarities of the construction industry, state policy has been particularly unsuccessful in dealing with the problems faced by construction workers. Our project considers both the risks rural workers in the construction industry face because of the work they do and the risks they face and because of their being rural workers. It shows that social protection needs to take into account both the work related risks and status related risks. The authors first review the literature concerning work related risks, and then build up a framework to analyses the risks embedded in their work and status. The relationship between these risks and the existing formal social protection. 20 persons in depth interviews with construction workers, carried out in industry workers, are used to demonstrate both the risks and the inability of the state-led social policy to tackle these risks. The results suggest that rural construction workers in cities were exposed to all sorts of problems from not being paid for their work in time to miserable living conditions, from having to pay for their own healthcare to no savings for old age. This paper highlights the problems of policy prescriptions that failed to recognize the complexity of the problems faced by these workers and criticizes the tendency to seek quick fixes rather than long-term and careful institutional design.