Cities in Gujarat first to feel the pinch of migrant exodus
Live MintIn Ahmedabad’s upmarket Paldi area, 41-year-old Jaswant Parmar has been noticing a dip in the city’s sanitation workforce during his daily door-to-door waste collection rounds, which begins at 7am. During the lockdown, local daily wage labourers and construction workers stepped in to clear the waste since the rest of the economy was shut and no work was available, said Meghna Malhotra of Urban Management Centre, which acts as a consultant to the Ahmedabad municipal corporation. But, for now, some key sectors of the economy like garments, textile and construction may face persistent labour shortages, said Amit Basole, a labour economist at the Azim Premji University. “These people are going to eventually find a way back, but it could still be months.” “The key unknown variable is the effectiveness of the skill mapping exercise that states are undertaking. “If demand increases, let’s see.” The memory of the plague, which is deeply embedded in Surat, has strands which are being invoked now – more special trains to Odisha ; ration cards for migrants.
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Surat, a tinderbox
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