ERUMBAVOOR : “Ache din aya nahin saab, abhi bhi bura din chal raha hein,” (The good days have not come yet, bad days are going on still), laments Mujebul Rehman, a migrant worker from Malda in West Bengal, working in a cement bricks construction unit in Pattipara. For him, the bad days started on November 8 last year when he and his friends had to return to his home town after the surprise withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,00 denomination currency notes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually bringing the unit to a screeching halt. Ernakulam is home to one-fourth of the migrant work force in Kerala due to several industries dotting the district. A majority of them - especially small industries - are still reeling from the aftershocks of demonetisation. For many like Mujebul who returned to Kerala, finding a regular job is an uphill task.
“Before demonetisation, we could easily earn around Rs 20,000 - Rs 25,000 a month,” said Mujebul. “After all our expenses, we could send Rs 15,000 to our families. We had plenty of work and it was easy to find a job here. Now, life has turned upside down. Most of the factories have drastically reduced the number of labourers. Some of them have shut down,” he said. A big claim of demonetisation was it would promote cashless transactions. However, a year down the line, it still remains a tall claim with migrant workers still preferring cash for their daily, weekly and monthly payments.
“Providing cash is more convenient for us. After our expenses, we transfer money through the bank or via CDMs (cash deposit machines) to family members. The colour of currency notes has changed after the demonetisation, but nothing good has happened to us on the ground level,” said Mujebul. Nazar and Sidhique who started cement brick manufacturing units at Pattipara after returning from West Asia said their ventures are on the verge of closure. “The cost of production is Rs 23 per brick. For the past several days, we are forced to sell bricks for Rs 21 a piece. We are running the unit on heavy losses.
“The hard times post demonetisation have badly affected the construction industry. The demand has plummeted and GST added the extra burden. We have to pay 28 per cent tax now. We are starting an indefinite strike from November 8. Earlier, when units operated for six days a week, now we cannot even afford to run factories for two days a week,” they said.
Plywood industry not same anymore
The situation is more or less the same in the plywood industry employing a large number of migrant workers. “The demonetisation has forced a majority of the migrant workers to return,” Binoy Peter, executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) said. “When the situation was slowly clawing back to normalcy, the GST was introduced due to which production at factories has come down. This has affected the migrant workers. The economy of industrial areas like Perumbavoor, Aluva and Kothamangalam is dependent on workers from other states. The entire area has been affected due to demonetisation and subsequent GST.”
He said around 72,000 migrant workers are employed in plywood factories in Perumbavoor alone. The estimated number of workers from other states in Ernakulam alone is around 1.5 lakh. Demonetisation has badly affected the migrant workers and they are finding it hard to stay in Kerala, he said.
Mohammed Riyaz, a proprietor of a plywood factory in Perumbavoor, said the operating time of the unit has been brought down to eight hours from 18 hours after the note ban. “After demonetisation, the demand for plywood nosedived as the cash sucked out led to a slowdown in the economy. Similarly, the GST reforms and 28 per cent tax for plywood brought the industry to a standstill. Since we fear legal action from banks from where we have availed loans, we could not close down the units. The factory owners have no other way other than reducing costs, including sacking the employees,” he said..
1,82,000 migrants are the net annual addition per year according to the study conducted by the Gulati Institute of Finance & Taxation
3.5-4 m inter-state migrants are there in the state, says a CMID study
A study carried out by the Department of Labour and Skills says there were over 2.5 million inter-state migrant workers in the state in 2013
The report states migrants from 194 districts spread across 25 states/ Union Territories were found working in Kerala during 2016-2017. More than four-fifths of these districts are in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the south, Uttar Pradesh in the north, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal in the east and Assam in the Northeast. Nearly 60 per cent of the source districts belong to the east and Northeast. Two-fifths of the total districts belong to Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal