Railway hawkers at the time of covid crisis

Atanu Sengupta & Asish Kumar Pal

Introduction:
Railway hawkers who work in station area and trains throughout the day are basically daily income earners with fluctuations in daily income. In this covid pandemic situation their lives and livelihoods are challenged. The hawkers are now jobless. They are unable to maintain their families in the lockdown period. Despite the government intervention they are in misery. Our study has been emphasised to reveal the poor economic condition of the railway hawkers in rural India.

According to CNBC report (March, 2020), India's move to put its 1.3 billion people in unprecedented lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak will disproportionately hurt the informal sector.

A very recent survey was conducted by (NCAER) National Council of Applied Economic Research included 1,750 participants covering both rural and urban areas of Delhi on (April 3-6, 2020), released the data showed that casual labourers were disproportionately affected with nearly 75% stating their wages were severely affected which is less than half, at 46% for salaried employees (April 13, 2020).

Objectives and analysis:
The objective of study is to assess the economic conditions of the workers related to hawking in railway and railway stations due to unprecedentedly lengthened lockdown throughout the country. To understand the present scenario of these workers the social conditions have been included in our study.The information is collected by interviewing method through informative and relevant questionnaires rapidly from the railway hawkers on random basis from the station area at the time of providing a little cash money by the local union of such workers near to the union office. There are 100 samples of workers who have responded. The questions are basically to the point of socio-economic system and some are subjective and relevant to the interruption of lockdown for protecting the spread of coronavirus.

Results and analysis
First, we have considered social features of our sample workers.
About 45% of our railway hawkers are between 26-40 years of age while 25% are in the lower age group. However, 22% are in 40-50 years age group and only 8% are above 50. In case of family size, 38% respondents hold 4-8 family members, 56% is in small scale family size while 6% of the sample hawkers are in larger family group. Considering the job experience of them we see only 14% have above 20 years of job experience, 34% have1-10 years of job experience while some others 52% have 11-20 years. Thus, our sample largely covers the hawkers who should have their full working capacity in this sector at the time of sampling in our study area.

Table: 1 (a) Age of the sample railway hawkers

Table: 1 (b) Family size of the responded hawkers of railway

Table: 1 (C) Job experience with railway among the workers

Now, we come to education. 43% of thesehawkers have 5-8 years of schooling. The higher education is rare (only 11%) that indicates maximum education of graduation.

Table: 1 (d) Educational Status ofrailwayhawkers

We have come to know about their housing condition also. They basically live along with family members in kancha (mud based) houses (51%). Although maximum house of the rest families was paka (concrete based houses) yet, recently near about 49% have built paka under the scheme of ‘PriministerAbasYojona' (PMAY).

1 (e) Distribution of housing condition of the railway hawkers

Next, we consider the information regarding the extent to which their livelihood is affected by the lockdown. 91% of daily wage basis of railway hawkers have responded their livelihoods have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a very small percentage expect their work to be hit poorer than later.

Table: 1(f) Information about the impact on livelihood

As to the economic background, most of them come from rural non-farm (42%) and agricultural families (32%). Actually, they are from basically marginal families in rural area.

Table: 2 (a) Ancestral family occupation of the respondents

If we look table 2(b), that describes about land holing of these hawkers in the village. 58% of the respondents have little or a very small amount of agricultural land. 33% respondents out of them are small land holder families. And only 9% belong to larger land holding family.

Table 2 (b): Distribution of land holding households of railway hawkers

From the income structure in table: 2 (C) the hawkersof railway sector (38%) earn money from Rs. 200-400 per day, 40% earns daily from Rs. 401- 600. Only 12% of respondents get money above Rs.600. Again 10% works under Rs.200 per day. It is pointed out that they were all involved in 'No work no pay’ system.

Table 2 (C): Income distributions of railwayhawkers

Without their labour they can nothing to earn that maintain their families because the following table shows that they have acknowledged that they do not have any other source of income.

Table 2(d): Any other source of income of the hawkers

The data in the table 2(e) explore a Proportion of consumers and hawkers in the family of the respondents who are only one earner of the household. Near about 90% of the households have only one income person and only 10% have more than one earner.

Table 2 (e):  Proportion of consumption and workers among the railway hawkers

When they are asked about the condition of present income status 79% of them responded they have worst affected with no income at all. 21% answered they earn taking the scope of another job in agricultural sector, grocery shop and buying vegetables to the neighbours. Almost all the railway hawkers are worried about to repay the bank loan by which they have had bought the cars.

Table 2(f): The data collected relating to response of job loss among the respondents

Another information is tabulated in the table no 2 (g) from the sample hawkers who (56%) have decreased their family consumption as income fellduring the lockdown.
Table 2 (g):  Statistics of family expenditure of these hawkers during lockdown

After being jobless they are literally penniless. There is no job prospect in the village. The little that would have been possible is frustrated by lockdown from the work. The joy of staying home is now bulldozed by the need to maintain cost of living.

In order to test their awareness about the government schemes which are provided to the rural people, a series of questions are constructed. The intensity of awareness is measured by the proportion of right answers. For example, 80% of the railway hawkers can identify Job card under MGNREGS that is well known to 100 day's work. Only 55% of the respondents can identify about the concept of BPL card and 73% of them have heard about 'JandhonYojona’ BankAccount.

Table 3 (a): Awareness of government schemes for the railway hawkers

The detailed information of beneficiaries of various cards holding among the respondents of these workers is collected (table: 3 b). This shows 21 % of respondents holds job card. As the vast rest percentage is in out of state for a long time, they do not show interest to hold job card for work. 55% of them has BPL card and other 45% of them do not occupy such type of card which will help to get food in subsidised rate by government. Only 86% such type of hawkers has opened bank account under the scheme of Prime minister ‘JondhonYojona' initiated by central government. Therefore, others are not eligible to enjoy ‘Direct Cash Benefit’ by the Central government. The railway related hawkers who are not occupied such types of holding card are not benefiting in this period. These hawkers who are not enjoying these facilities are in absolute condition of poverty. Maximum respondents answered that they can survive their family with the assistance of government through ‘Foodfor All' scheme.

Table 3 (b): Government facilities through different card holding among the hawkers of railway sector

Some of the hawkers complained that they are unable to work in agricultural, rural non-farm and any other sectors. According to Gram Panchayat pradhan of the selected area, lockdown has forced some of these people to workunderthe ‘MGNREGA programme’ by using the job card of other registered persons on a commission basis.

Table 3 (C): Their ability to work in other sectors

However, when asked about their willingness to come back to railway hawking when lockdown ends, most of the respondents are eager to stay with their present work. However, 11% remained silent.

Table 4: Their willingness to return to work after ending lockdown

Conclusion:
This is the case of our sampled railway hawkers who covers some portion of the total Informal labourers of unorganized sector in our country. Lockdown situation brings them in economic crisis due joblessness.

Dr. Atanu Sengupta, Professor, Economics Department, Burdwan University,  West Bengal, India
Dr. Asish Kumar Pal, Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Tarakeswar Degree College, Tarakeswar, Hooghly, West Bengal, India

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Frontier
Sep 13, 2020