In the aftermath of the COVID-19 national lockdown in March 2020, India saw the mass movement of an estimated 11.4 million migrants back to their home states. Many more remained stranded at worksites and destination cities, and experienced hunger, indebtedness and sickness. The vulnerability of migrants was substantially exacerbated by their inadequate incorporation in social protection mechanisms, which have consistently failed to recognise circular and seasonal mobility patterns, despite being aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the poor. In particular, portability mechanisms that allow migrants to access entitlements across locations have remained inadequate.
This policy note focuses on initiatives and measures to improve portability and access to social protection and welfare for women and children affected by migration in the state of Maharashtra. The study considered all children (up to the age of 18) affected by the migration process, including independent child migrants, those who accompany their parents and those left behind after their parents migrate for work.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 national lockdown in March 2020, India saw the mass movement of an estimated 11.4 million migrants back to their home states. Many more remained stranded at worksites and destination cities, and experienced hunger, indebtedness and sickness. The vulnerability of migrants was substantially exacerbated by their inadequate incorporation in social protection mechanisms, which have consistently failed to recognize circular and seasonal mobility patterns, despite being aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the poor. In particular, portability mechanisms that allow migrants to access entitlements across locations have remained inadequate.
This policy note focuses on initiatives and measures to improve portability and access to social protection and welfare for women and children affected by migration in the state of Gujarat. The study considered all children (up to the age of 18) affected by the migration process, including independent child migrants, those who accompany their parents and those left behind after their parents migrate for work.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 national lockdown in March 2020, India saw the mass movement of an estimated 11.4 million migrants back to their home states. Many more remained stranded at worksites and destination cities, and experienced hunger, indebtedness and sickness. The vulnerability of migrants was substantially exacerbated by their inadequate incorporation in social protection mechanisms, which have consistently failed to recognize circular and seasonal mobility patterns, despite being aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the poor. In particular, portability mechanisms that allow migrants to access entitlements across locations have remained inadequate.
This policy note focuses on initiatives and measures to improve portability and access to social protection and welfare for women and children affected by migration in the state of Chhattisgarh. The study considered all children (up to the age of 18) affected by the migration process, including independent child migrants, those who accompany their parents and those left behind after their parents migrate for work.
The FCDO-CPR partnership for “Building State Capacities for land, planning and slum upgrading for resilient cities in Odisha” has been working closely with the H&UDD, Government of Odisha since 2020. The partnership primarily focused on setting up processes for effective monitoring of the UWEI program launched in April 2020 to tackle the crisis and provide rapid relief to reduce livelihood vulnerabilities of the urban poor in the event of the global pandemic. It also supported in formulating a long-term wage employment scheme, Mukhyamantri Karma Tatapara Abhiyan (MUKTA) by expanding the scope of UWEI. The partnership further steered various interventions enabling significant momentum in Odisha’s journey towards slum-free and slum-proof cities by launching comprehensive SOP on New Liveable Habitat guided by the principle of maximising in-situ settlement of slums. Furthermore, the project supported the GoO in demonstrating utilisation of the vast data repository created during phase 1 of JAGA Mission by translating the same into an online planning tool and using it for solving critical problems of land exchange, adjustment of revenue boundaries among others.
Three knowledge products on 1) New Habitat 2) Urban Wage Employment Initiative, and 3) Online Tool for City-Level Slum Free Planning, have been developed under this partnership for documenting the learnings from the above endeavours. These highlight the institutional arrangement, capacity building, planning, and implementation approaches for each of the themes. It further brings out the critical aspects of on-ground implementation, challenges, and opportunities.
The knowledge products have been launched at the National Workshop on ‘Learnings from Odisha’s Efforts of Building Resilient Cities’ jointly organised by the British High Commission in India and Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in partnership with the Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD), Government of Odisha on 28th January 2022.
Documents:
This policy brief explores the intersection of land rights and technology by analysing four government schemes, namely, Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), Survey of Villages Abadi & Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), AgriStack, and JAGA Mission (Odisha). The authors discuss the potential for better provision of land rights and socioeconomic rights to beneficiaries through these schemes, while highlighting the pitfalls associated with technological interventions in land administration and related digital public goods, within the constitutional democratic framework of India.
In response to the national and state-level sanitation imperatives, Dhenkanal district, Odisha, is undertaking the ‘Dhenkanal Pilot Project for Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM)’ in partnership with the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Department, Housing and Urban Development Department, UNICEF, and the Centre for Policy Research. The Project aims to enable access to safely managed sanitation in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goal 6 through a novel district-wide approach to sanitation planning.
To better understand the prevailing SLWM landscape in the district and guide interventions, the Project undertook a desk review of the Dhenkanal district followed by a primary data collection through a survey of 1000 households and interviews with over 30 key stakeholders at the GP-level during August-September 2020. The present Report discusses the district profile in detail in addition to the analysis of sanitation-related secondary data. It compiles the key findings from the primary survey, enlisting not only existing infrastructure but also perception of people around various elements of the sanitation value chain and concludes with recommendations for the way forward.
This brief discusses desirable strategies and important considerations to implement coronavirus (COVID-19) testing and data analysis. The suggestions are consistent with a modern statistical understanding of how to detect infection and understand where and how much it has spread across each state in India and, most importantly, minimise its transmission. All this has to be done in an environment of scarcity of tests. India’s level of testing (in terms of tests per million) is one-hundredth that of levels seen in countries such as Italy and Spain.
Recognising the inadequacies in the state of housing in India, the national agenda of housing for all has emerged as one of the top priorities of the government. Despite the launch of numerous schemes to improve the housing conditions of economically weaker sections (EWS) and low-income groups (LIG), approximately 95 percent of the housing shortage of 18.8 million units prevails among the EWS and LIG categories as of 2012. To address the housing requirements of the urban poor, including slum dwellers, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), or the mission of ‘Housing for All by 2022’, was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister in 2015.
Among the four verticals of PMAY, Beneficiary Led Individual House Construction (BLC) has emerged as the front runner with about 60 percent of the total PMAY houses sanctioned under this vertical. Along with its ease of implementation resulting from the availability of land rights, this vertical also attained significant traction from the innovative approaches adopted by various state governments to expedite the disbursal of the BLC subsidy. These innovations have enabled the states to facilitate house construction among the urban poor through the provision of land rights, increased subsidies, and financial assistance. To understand the process of BLC implementation and the innovative interventions by states to streamline this process, household surveys were conducted across three states: Odisha, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.
Based on the learnings of the process of BLC implementation in the three states, this report outlines key recommendations for the PMAY guideline to enable better integration of the scheme with the local specificities, thereby benefitting the most vulnerable sections. It advocates leveraging of three primary enablers – access to land, holistic city planning, and access to institutional finances – to achieve the national ‘Housing for All’ agenda.
The 2020 migrant crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 national lockdown highlighted the urgent need to incorporate migrants in existing social protection mechanisms, which fail to recognize circular and seasonal mobility patterns. During the lockdown, the lack of adequate portability mechanisms meant that migrants were unable to access social protection and welfare services, including emergency relief measures, at destination locations. In this context, the study focused particularly on social protection measures to address the vulnerabilities of children and women, whose role in migration has been under-represented in the policy discourse. A summary of key findings and recommendations is presented here.
