New hope for 2022.......

 At the end of 2021, something that Sadhguru said in one of his talks stuck in my mind. He said that the western civilization is like a manicured garden, beautiful but needs a lot of maintenance, while it should be like a self-sustaining forest. 

In order to create civilization as beautiful as the modern world is, we need lots of resources. That much is not available on earth. So we need to develop a model of a beautiful civilization, that requires just the resources that are available. Enough resources to let a human being live with dignity. Enough to sustain a modern life, of mechanics, information, and mobility. 

2021 showed us the futility of having a non-sustainable manicured garden. 2022 will embark upon the process of self-sustainable development. A sum total of intelligent choices at Micro and Macro level, between sustainable and non-sustainable is how the future society, economy, and culture will be defined. 

Making intelligent choices is an easy thing to do, for citizens, nations, and the world. All complexity of sorting algorithms is eased if the selection variable is sustainability. 

Equal education to all helps people achieve social mobility. Equal health to all let them live a dignified life. A world where everyone claims equal resources may be a utopian world. Equal Health and Education is realistic. 

The Sun of 2022 will shine bright above all clouds. Hopefully !

Happy 2022 !

Angry Little Girls - International Day of Girl Child

 Today, is International Day of Girl Child. As a news item flashes on my computer screen, declaring the day to be celebrated worldwide, some innocent faces of angry little girls flash before my eyes. 

One was a face of a little girl with bright dark shining eyes, on a round face which was tender and stoic at the same time, in a peculiar way. She was eight or nine. Her family had migrated to Rajasthan from West Bengal. Her mother had come looking for a house help's job at my house and the little girl had accompanied her. They had migrated looking for employment, the father, mother, and her elder sister. She was the first one to pick up Hindi in the family, almost in a week's time. Thus, she was required to act as a translator for her mother. 

The job was given to her mother. A few days later, when she had accompanied her mother to work, I asked her if she had taken admission to the school. She denied with a nod. I asked her if she had studied in her village. She said Yes. The expression on her face had changed by then. I saw a face lightening up with a glimpse of a smile. As we talked for the next few minutes, I was told that she had a favourite teacher back in the village, who taught her most of the subjects, Maths, English, and Bengali. It was fun going to school because the teacher loved her a lot and she had friends there. I was also very shyly told that she had stood first in her class in the previous exam. There was a playground, classrooms, trees in her school, and a river beside.  

When I asked, why she had not taken admission to school in Jaipur, the expression on her face changed. A pair of bright eyes that had a twinkle a moment before, had a bursting anger now. When little girls are angry, their eyes speak a thousand words. No transfer certificate was sought from her last school because there was no plan to get her educated further. She was denied education and with that all good things that the school brought to her, a loving teacher, friendships, and an opportunity to learn and grow were denied to her. She was bright, eager to learn and thus, was angry. 

Another face that I am reminded of was also a little girl, eleven years old, holding a toddler brother in her arms, standing in a small village of Jalore district. We were doing a project and had visited a scheduled caste colony, where a proposed water tank was to be constructed. This little girl was the one who had the best communication skills in the community and thus she was summoned to have a conversation with me about her colony. She was confident and well-spoken. She was irreverent about the whole business of constructing a tank, though. I enquired from her, if they went to fetch water, and about her daily routine. As we talked more we became friends. I asked her if she went to school. She looked sideways, pursed her lips, looked back at me, and nodded her head in denial. The face in front of me was that of a little girl who was angry, at being a school dropout because she had to take care of her younger siblings, at being a part of a society that forced her to give up education, at being a citizen of a country which could not ensure education to her. 'Hum Padna chahte hain, padhne hi nahi dete to kya karen.' 

Later, I met the school teacher in the village. She said that there were always a couple of girls in every class, who were good at studies and were likely to do well if they continued their education. There were a number of factors because of which they were dropouts. Children coming from scheduled castes were ragged and ridiculed in school. The girls dropped out at late primary levels because there was no girls' school close by. Those who wished to study were a few while those who wished to give up on studies were many, so they were in minority. They were required at home, there were social pressures and their families felt that education would not do any good to their daughters. 

Some little girls wish to study because they love studying. If they are denied the opportunity they are angry. 

I have another young lady, today in front of me, who will be denied a post-graduate education, for she cannot afford it. She is bright, has dreams in her eyes, and has been able to complete her education till graduation with good grades. She has always had limited resources but she managed to score 78% in her 12th grade. She has been sailing against the tide all through. She could because she is a very hardworking girl. 

Little girls are angry. Matured young girls learn to suppress their anger. I have another conversation this time, but a mature one. I am told that professional education and job would make a young lady independent, not just financially, but also in terms of making her own choices in life. If she is denied education, she will be married off. Her cousins were bright too, but they were married off. A slender, soft-spoken demure girl tells me that domestic violence is common in the area, from where she comes from. Life after marriage is unhappy for all the girls, she knows of. 

Long back, I had taken the little daughter of my house help to a Girls School at Durgapura, close to my house. I had met the Principal and told her that if she was admitted to school, I will take care of her other needs. She said she couldn't do much in the absence of a TC. I told her mother to get her TC from village. She was reluctant and said that the father of the girls was not interested in getting them educated. I watched her growing up in my colony, first accompanying her mother to the job, and then gradually helping her out. She was known for being outspoken and for picking up a newspaper to read, in the houses, where her mother worked. 

Thirteen years later, her mother still works for us. The little girl has grown up, got married, and has two kids, a girl, and a boy. My house help proudly says that her daughter has a Pacca house to live in, has a TV and a Fridge. I wonder if her granddaughter will receive the education that was once denied to her mother. Her mother had once been very angry, when she was a little girl. 

I couldn't do much for the angry little girl in the village, I had met, except for asking the teacher to convince her parents to resume her education. I have no idea what happened to her life. I had seen a keen desire to learn in her, to educate herself, and an anger for being denied that. 

I am angry too, at my helplessness for not being able to do anything for those little girls. 

Education, particularly in India, is not considered as a value addition to life, by many. The fact remains that lack of education closes many possibilities for both boys and girls. There are some angry little girls, who seem to understand this when they are forcibly dropped out of school. Whatever little education they receive leaves a hunger with them to receive more. 

Investing in girl child is enough for India's future. We don't need any other developmental paradigm. 

I couldn't do much for two little girls. I am convinced that the third one will get an opportunity, and I will not be helpless this time. She will receive an education and will get a job. She will work hard, make her own choices, and will have a happy life. She will educate her daughter too. 

I have something in common with all three of them - the love for learning, for studying, for exploring the world, the new dimensions of life......................

COVID 19 – Will the Government help in acquiring and managing data?

 The third wave of COVID 19 is imminent in India. In an article published in Nature in September 2020, it was mentioned that a typical SARS-CoV-2 virus accumulates only two single-letter mutations per month in its genome — a rate of change about half that of influenza and one-quarter that of HIV. Despite the virus’s sluggish mutation rate, researchers have catalogued more than 12,000 mutations in SARS-CoV-2 genomes.

Scientists can spot mutations faster than they can make sense of them. Many mutations will have no consequence for the virus’s ability to spread or cause disease, because they do not alter the shape of a protein. Scientists said that as population-wide immunity rises, whether through infection or vaccination, a steady trickle of immune-evading mutations could help SARS-CoV-2 to establish itself permanently. Our immune responses to coronavirus infections, including to SARS-CoV-2, aren’t strong or long-lived enough to generate selection pressure that leads to significantly altered virus strains.

Manaus, a Brazilian city of more than two million, has stood out as one of the world’s leading COVID hotspots. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has promoted the idea of letting the pathogen move throughout the population until most people have been infected, to get close to herd immunity. Manaus was the first city in the world to reach herd immunity—the point at which enough people are immune to a virus that the spread of new infections is hindered. Preliminary preprint study of researchers at the University of São Paulo estimated that 66 percent of the population had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (they later revised their figure to 76 percent as of October).

In December 2020 a second wave did hit. And by January the city’s health system, had collapsed. ICUs were full to bursting, and oxygen supplies became exhausted. Some patients were airlifted to other regions of Brazil. But many died of asphyxiation on makeshift beds in hospital corridors or their home.

More severe than the first one, the new wave took Manaus by surprise. Wearing masks and practicing social distancing had been discarded in the belief the city had reached herd immunity. Caseloads surged out of control, and bleak milestones from last year were surpassed. In January alone more than 3,200 excess deaths were logged,

The Manaus variant, or more formally P.1, caused reinfections in people, who had earlier bouts or could have sped the rate of transmission among the still uninfected. William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Heath said that Herd immunity through infection, instead of a vaccine, only comes with an enormous amount of illness and death.

Resistance to new measures persisted for months in Brazilian towns. Social distancing and mask wearing lagged. The Manaus experience holds a cautionary message for the rest of the world, including the U.S., about maintaining basic public health strictures even as vaccination campaigns progress. And it underlines why only a global approach to immunizations will work. Manaus got hit really hard because they dropped all of their mitigations, and they didn’t have an adequate state of herd immunity, as was assumed. Latin American countries—where vaccination numbers are behind the global North and infection rates are high—are fertile ground for breeding new variants. The more the virus spreads, the more it is able to find vulnerable groups in which mutations can arise.

The P.1 mutation is believed to have emerged in Manaus in early November 2020, but by January it made up three quarters of all variants detected in the city and had spread to Japan. It has since been detected in at least 34 other countries and regions, including the U.S. and the U.K. Like other variants first detected in the U.K. and South Africa, P.1’s 17 mutations occurred unusually quickly, and many of them are in the spike protein, which is used to penetrate the cells of an infected person. Fiocruz researchers found that the level of SARS-CoV-2, or viral load, in patients infected with the variant was 10 times higher. CADDE study estimated that P.1 dodges 25 to 61 percent of protective immunity gained from infection with earlier variants.

Immunity gained through vaccination appears to be more robust than immunity achieved from infection. Johnson & Johnson’s jab proved 85 percent effective against severe disease in trials in Brazil—no less than it did in the U.S. Experts say that the situation is worrying—not just for the people of Brazil but for the rest of the world as well because of the virus’s track record of acquiring mutations in areas where it abounds.

The above mentioned facts derived from a number of studies done internationally bring home three facts in Indian context–

1.       The probability of a third wave would be higher if the virus cannot be controlled quickly in the second wave as it will get more opportunity to mutate.

2.       Immunity gained through vaccination will provide a better security against a mutating virus but vaccinating a large population is difficult.

3.       Public Health measures like masks, social distancing and lockdowns seem to control the spread of the virus, and indirectly control the processes of development of viral variants in the future, which are more infectious and fatal.

International understanding on vaccination is required. Accelerating the vaccine campaign throughout the world will be helpful in controlling the pandemic. If COVID is somewhere, it has the potential to be everywhere. Thus, vaccination of the entire population in the world is required, simultaneously. I will not discuss the details of politico-economic dimensions of vaccination in this post.

I want to focus my attention on the other aspect – Public Health.

The success of Public Health depends entirely on data. Restricting viral spreads to limited geographies would be much easier if data related to disease is provided to researchers, epidemiologists and statisticians.

I will take a simple example. Data related to patients, who have been hospitalised and those who have died, disaggregated on the basis of those who have or have not received vaccine, doses of vaccine, co morbidities, age, gender, rural-urban, residence, on a real time basis and flashed on a dashboard would be so helpful in developing targeted vaccination drives, testing for affected populations, taking public health measures and creating awareness.

If it is found that hospitalisation of patients is increasing in Jaipur from nearby areas, care could be taken close to them by establishing make-shift COVID centres or care units. If there is vaccine hesitancy or casual attitude towards social distancing measures, targeted awareness campaigns could be launched.

In a country which has robust IT infrastructure it is not difficult to create dashboards with easily accessible databases. If data can save lives, doctors and data scientists should work together.

While the Indian Council of Medical Research has granular data on all residents who’ve been tested so far, it restricts access to this database. 300 scientists have asked PM Modi to give access to data for charting Covid-19 spread. Their petition says - “The ICMR database is inaccessible to anyone outside of the government and perhaps also to many within the government,” they wrote. “While new pandemics can have unpredictable features, our inability to adequately manage the spread of infections has, to a large extent, resulted from epidemiological data not being systematically collected and released in a timely manner to the scientific community.”

State Governments should heed a request for data on an urgent basis. We request for recording of data at the hospitals and vaccination centers too and transferring it to a centralized database. Digitizing patient data at the hospitals would not take much time with a lot of technological tools like scanners and spreadsheets available. 

Vaccine Hesitancy is probably not found in the cities where COVID second wave spread has happened. But it is still prevalent in the smaller towns and villages. I have personal information about the early stage of vaccination, in a city like Jaipur, where vaccines were wasted because people did not show up in adequate numbers for vaccination. A data check on foot-falls at vaccination centers would eliminate the wastage of vaccines, which is almost criminal in the present scenario. Only with vaccination will we be able to control the pandemic and stop the emergence of new viral variants.

For a densely populated country like India, a third, fourth or fifth wave may occur. In the second wave virus has moved to small towns and villages. Tracking is imminent and essential.

I can give numerous examples where systemic data management and analytics can help make hospital supply chain robust, predict demand for resources, medicines, beds in the wake of new wave and can help in controlling the pandemic better. If only I have an access to data.

Will the government respond to the call?

There is a possibility that the virus weakens itself during mutations. In spite of the anguish, pain and agony that is prevalent around us, a human being wants to be optimistic. Yet data collected during the current pandemic will go a long way in managing the future bursts.

 

 

Rajasthan moves to Universal Health care - Budget 2021-22

 The chief minister of Rajasthan announced that Right to Health enactment would be passed in the state, when he presented the first ever health oriented budget of Rajasthan. He made announcement of providing 100 % insurance cover to the people of Rajasthan, as a step towards Universal Health Coverage. He made important announcements for the extension of free drug distribution and free diagnostics schemes. Rajasthan model of Public Health was mentioned in the speech, which is a welcome step to boost much neglected preventive and promotive care in the country. Principally, Rajsthan has taken all the right steps towards the achievement of Sustainable Development  Goal – 3, which is Health.

Health and Education are the two most important pillars of human development. A healthy and educated society is a harmonious and happy society.  Good governance ensures equal accessibility of health and education to everyone in the society, and that becomes one of the most important indicators of equity. Investment in health brings long term benefits.  These are simple facts, known to development economists for a long time.

It took a pandemic to impart political will to bring back focus on health in the country. Total allocation to medical and Health in Rajasthan’s budget is 53,02,71.34 lakhs. Health is a state subject and some part of allocation to health, comes from central fund allocations to programs and schemes. Ayurveda Department will get an allocation of 11,54,37.90 lakhs allocation, with the center’s share in it as 4369.54 lakhs. Medical and Health Department received an allocation of  10,37,155.06 lakhs, out of which 1,65,701.28 lakhs will be center’s share. Medical education gets an allocation of 44,68,35.60 lakhs out of which 68434.80 lakhs is center’s contribution.

Department	State	Center	Total
Directorate Family Planning	66668.99	57804.02	124473.01
Directorate Medical and Health	720172.21	0.09	720172.30
Mobile Medical Unit	1565.47	-	1565.47
NRHM	80303.01	107897.01	188200.01
Food Safety	68	-	68
Medicine and Drugs	2676.10	.17	2676.27
Medical Colleges	378400.80	68434.80	446835.60
Ayurveda	111068.36	4369.54	115437.90
Yunani and Homeopathic	8329.43	-	8329.43

Apparently, allocation to NRHM has been reduced, but it might increase in the revised estimates, as central fund allocation is pronounced. Major increase in allocation has been for Jan Swasthya Bima Yojna, medical education and free drug distribution scheme.

Scheme	Budgeted Allocation in Lakhs – 2020-21	Budgeted Allocation in Lakhs-2021-22	Increased Allocations	Percentage change
Free Drug Distribution scheme	60185.61	70118.56	9932.95	16.50%
Free Diagnostic scheme	25453.2	25513.16	59.96	0.24%
Jan swasthya Bima Yojna	49150.82	146339.89	97189.07	197.74%
Rajasthan Medical Education	21600	27000.01	5400.01	25.00%
National Ayush Mission	155655	168700.00	13045	8.38%
NRHM	250692	188200.01	-62492	-24.93%
NUHM	5910	6500	590	9.98%
EMRI	12900	13000.00	100	0.78%

 Enhancing demand for healthcare

Universal health coverage of Rs. 5 lakh insurance cover provided to every family, a facility for cashless IPD treatment, is an announcement which is welcome. It will be provided free of cost to those covered under Ayushman Bharat, and small and marginal farmers. For the rest of the people it will be available at a premium of Rs. 850 annually. It will prove to be a major factor in increasing demand for healthcare services. It is yet to be made clear whether this scheme could be incorporated as a scheme of group insurance or not, generally subscribed by private and semi-government organisations. Rajasthan Government Health Scheme on the lines of CGHS has been announced by the Chief Minister for Pensioners, MLAs and Government Officials. Mukhyamantri Nishulk Jaanch Yojna will be extended to 61 PHCs (from 15), 95 CHCs (from 37) and 109 subdistrict hospitals (from 56 ), and 133 district hospitals (from 56), through a hub and spoke model.

Supporting Healthcare on supply side

The supply side will be enhanced by the increasing empanelment of health care service providers in the private sector.  Several announcements were made to increase capacity of hospitals and opening of new hospitals. Increase of 1000 beds in hospitals at Kota, Bhilwara, Sikar, Bharatpur, Pali, Churu and Barmer has been announced. 30 new PHCs will be established and 50 PHCs will be upgraded to CHCs. Model CHCs will be established in every assembly constituency. MLA Fund of 2 crores will be utilised for that purpose. At every district headquarter, medical college will be established. Every district will have its own nursing college. Building for 40 PHCs and 25 CHCs will be constructed with expenditure of 206 cr.

Institute of tropical medicine and virology and Institute of Cardiology will be established in Jaipur for health response to all communicable diseases, preventive as well as curative and cardiac problems under one roof. Post graduate institute of Maternity and Neonatology and Regional Cancer Institute will be established in Jodhpur. For alternate medicine Ayurvedic, Unani and Homeopathic hospitals will be established at every block headquarter. Post MBBS diploma in 8 specialities will be offered at all district hospitals. That will ensure the availability of 400 more specialists every year. Special cadre for specialist doctors will be introduced to better utilize their services particularly in the far off areas. For a better management of medical colleges and public hospitals, a Health Management Cadre will be introduced.

New Jeevan Rakshak Yojna will be launched to provide free emergency care to those who suffer from road injuries without having any need for identity check. 100 crores will be provided for dedicated Road Safety Fund. Primary Trauma Center will be established at 40 CHCs. Directorate of Food Safety will look after the quality of food products.  Rajasthan Ayush Niti 2021 will be made to boost ayurved based health services and ayurved based medical tourism. International center for excellence in Panchakarma will be established in Jodhpur for the purpose.  

Public Health

Rajasthan Model of Public Health has been supported by announcements made about 12000 health and wellness centers to be established, by upgrading PHCs and sub-centres. Primary health services of 12 types will be made available at these centres. HWCs will become primary functional units for Public Health. For that 11000 Community Health Officers are being recruited. Public Health Colleges will be established at divisional head quarter.

A Community Health Officer is supposed to collect the data of a population of 3000-5000 and transfer it to a centralised database. He should be capable of analysing this data, prepare epidemiological reports, understand socio-economic parameters affecting the health of the people, understand the ecology of his area, and make intelligent suggestions for targeted policy and programmatic initiatives. Unfortunately, the community health officers being recruited by the government are not skilled in all the above mentioned areas. They need to be educated, and will have to be provided better skills. Public Health Colleges should do that work.

Challenges

While the announcements made are in the right direction, robust implementation would be the key. Healthcare sector has an asymmetric distribution of information, which gives rise to cartelization, inefficient markets and suboptimal allocation of resources. Studies have found that insurance schemes like RSBY have not been able to deliver on a high cost-benefit ratio. Government hospitals are overcrowded and inefficient and private healthcare service is suboptimal. Private insurance markets, world over, are riddled with the problems of middlemen, increasing the overall costs.  Challenges are just too many, and a lot of political will would be required to deliver on the promises made. 

But, it is definitely a right step in the right direction. 

Invisible GDP contributors in India

 Roughly 400 million migrants are invisible in India, 60 million of them being migrant labourers who  contribute 10% to the GDP. There is a lack of critical data on circular migrants in terms of where they work, what their native place is, who they are, how they are recruited, what their daily wage is and what their vulnerabilities are to shocks such as COVID 19 pandemic. Migrant labour registry is done at the place of origin, in some states, but there is no data of migrant labour at the place where they work. Migrant workers are employed in the informal sector, usually doing low paying, hazardous, unskilled jobs in the textiles, manufacturing, construction, hotel transportation, services and domestic work. They start working at an early age. They spend the day at worksites and return back to perilous shelters in the slums, in small rooms shared by 5-6 workers, at night. Many of them sleep in the open. Urban planners miss accounting for migrant workers as part of the city, as they remain invisible.[1] Increasing their visibility is the key to developing a sustainable society.

Migration is a world-wide phenomenon. ILO report on global estimates on International Migratory Workers (2017), acknowledged that there is a lack of comprehensive, official statistical data on migrant workers at the national, regional and global levels.[2] The migration data collected by Census 2001, reported 307 million migration workers in India[3]. A majority of them are wage earners who help run the economy in the urban areas. The biggest problem with migrant workers is an almost invisible existence of these groups in the society.

In the months of April and May, Indian roads visualized a mass exodus of migrant labourers, making long arduous journeys from the cities or towns where they worked, to their native villages, on foot. The Finance Minister of India, on May 20^th said that the government wants to help migrants but does not have the data to reach out to them[4]. In a population of 1.3 billion it is difficult to find a migrant labourer, who is vulnerable.  Cluster Containment Strategy developed to combat COVID 19 pandemic, enforced a lockdown of about two months in the country, leaving many wage earners jobless.

It was a systemic failure. India could have avoided the human tragedy by extending relief to the migrant workers during the lockdown period, if there were established systems. Help lines were created to provide food and ration to those in need, in a hurry, but no systemic response could be generated due to lack of data. High-quality and up-to-date labour migration statistics could have enabled the system to design, implement and monitor a quick systemic response to unique vulnerabilities arising out of lockdown of the country for two months.

Economic Survey of 2016-17, the flagship annual document of Ministry of Finance in India, had carried a chapter on migratory labour flows in India. The survey mentioned that economic growth after 1980’s triggered inter-state migration in India, as better economic opportunities outweighed the cost of moving. Migration of labour is an important factor in Chinese development too, as is visible, when 277 million migrants board trains from industrial districts, to return back to their homes, every year, on Chinese New Year.

Economic Survey 2016-17 mentioned that ‘portability of food security benefits, healthcare, and a basic social security framework’ for the migrant were crucial for the migrant welfare. This could potentially be done through an interstate self-registration process. Inter-state coordination of fiscal costs of migration is required, functionally enforced by implementing inter-state migrant welfare schemes enabling digital transfer of funds. Economic Survey 2016-17 mentioned that ‘domestic remittances market, estimated to exceed Rs. 1.5 lakh crores, can also be leveraged to enhance financial inclusion’ for migrant workers and their families[1].

As a poverty reduction measure, the Economic Survey of 2016-17, had mentioned the JAM (Jan-Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile) model,[2] in the context of Universal Basic Income. Transfer of relief funds to migrant workers, as part of disaster management, needs some sort of a framework to avert future crisis.

Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is the national Mission for financial inclusion. Accounts opened under the scheme at any bank or business correspondent outlet ensure access to financial services such as savings and deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance and pension with a zero balance. A mobile based application for self-registration of migrant labour, containing his personal information, address, Aadhar number[1], place of residence and place of work, is a proposed framework for capturing data of migrant workers.  Along with Aadhar, his information could be verified by his local panchayat in the village or municipal body in the towns. 

One in four Indians has smartphone. [2] Mobile phones are available to over 90% of population, though smart phones are available to only 32%. This implies that only about a third of Indian population can access services and features available on the internet, though most of the population has an access to basic wireless connectivity.[3] For instance, a survey conducted by the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) found that while 51.6% migrants in Ernakulam have smart phones, 46% used basic feature phones and 2.3% have no access to mobile phones.[4]

M Pesa model[1] prevalent in African countries provides an evidence for successful electronic transfer of funds to vulnerable communities. A  UPI-based user friendly money transactions application on feature phones can be easily designed in India. Same application can be developed for smart phones as well, for those who may have an access to internet banking. Most of these services are enabled by Cloud technology. A basic feature phone is available in India for 25 USD, while a smart phone is available at 70 USD. Two surveys were conducted when migrant labour was on road during lockdown. A study carried out by Jan Sahas  an NGO, on 3,196 migrant workers from north and central India , showed that 62 per cent of them did not have any information about emergency welfare measures provided by the government, with 37 per cent of them not knowing how to access existing schemes.[2]

Nearly 47 percent of Mumbai’s population comprises of migrants (as per Migration Census of India, 2001), with a large percentage employed as labourers in the manufacturing and recycling industries in areas such as Govandi, Kurla and Dharavi. As per a report published in India Today, labourers working in Mumbai are keen to get an access to bollywood movies on their mobile phones.  High-definition versions of the latest movies, old classics and music videos, are uploaded on the workers’ mobile phones by vendors in the city.[3] The workers are keen to purchase mobile phones to get an access to the movies.

Every crisis brings a unique opportunity. Bringing labour registry and financial inclusion together on a mobile based application could bring a unique solution to the problem of invisibility of migrant labour force in India, and can bring about a solution to relief response required at the time of disaster. Love for Bollywood movies that encourages a worker to purchase a smart phone can help him in making himself visible to the society and the government. Technological interventions are easy to design and maintain in India. As economic activity is restored and migrants start returning back to work in the industrial towns of India, they can make an endeavour to make themselves visible, through a simple self-registry process on a mobile application.

At the second stage of digital intervention, inter-state fiscal transfers can be made possible. Such interventions, which are easy to implement, would restore the faith of a migrant labourer who walked miles to reach him home, in the political-social system in the country. Such measures would vastly enhance the welfare gains of migration and encourage even greater integration of labour markets in India.