Over 1.4 lakh marginal workers, vendors shoulder responsibility of Guwahati’s development, but who cares about them?

With the rapid development along with unprecedented expansion of Guwahati-the Gateway to India’s Northeast, the number of the people working in the informal sector (PIE) in the city has also multiplied in recent decades. Among the PIE are over a lakh construction worker and nearly 40,000 vendors who have shouldered the responsibility of the city’s development yet facing discrimination and exclusion due to failure of the authorities to implement the laws enacted by Indian parliament for protection of their livelihood rights and ensuring social security.

Most of the people migrated to this capital city and urban centres of Assam have been engaging themselves in the informal sector that mainly includes vending, manual as well as skilled work in construction and development works, carpentry, masonry, painters, plumbers, cook, domestic workers, cleaning etc. The state of Assam with high unemployment rate has lakhs of people working in the informal sector and within the state Guwahati has been witnessing radical changes in the form of rapid rise in numbers of PIS in last three or four decades, particularly during the post liberalisation period.

The growth of PIEs in a massive number in this capital city Assam is a result of a number of causes which includes massive unemployment primarily resulting from underdevelopment and slow economic growth; successive failure of crop due to flood ,erosion and other natural calamities that transforms agriculture to a seemingly non-productive avenue; alienation of agriculture as well as abode land from the possession of marginal section of the people by various means of discriminatory policies, systematic exploitation and imposed agricultural practices.

Recently the International Labour organisation (ILO) has published one document about the people working in the informal sector worldwide, according to which around 81% employed person in India are working in the informal sector, with only 6.5% in the formal sector and 0.8% in the household sector. The ILO report titled “Women and Men in the Informal Economy – A Statistical Picture (Third edition)” emphasised on the fact that for having a decent work for million people in the informal economy (PIEs) a transition to the formal economy is a condition precedent. The study also found a rising number (98.3%) of youth aged 15-24 in informal employment in the region compared with 67.1% of adult workers (25+). “The higher the education level, the higher the chance to obtain formal employment; 31 per cent of tertiary-educated workers are in informal employment compared to 90 per cent of workers with primary education”, said the report. The important aspect highlighted by this report is that such jobs were predominant in rural areas (85.2 %) and formed almost half of employment (47.4%) in urban areas.

The report reveals that almost all of agricultural employment (94.7%) is informal in the Asia-Pacific region, and it reaches a high of 99.3% in Southern Asia which includes India. In the industrial sector, informal jobs represents a higher share at 68.8% than in the services sector at 54.1%.The report also says that globally around two billion people – more than 61% of all employed people – work in the informal economy, adding that 93% the world’s informal employment is in emerging and developing countries, with the level of education seen as a key factor. Agriculture is the sector with the highest level of informal employment (93.6%) around the world. The industry (57.2%) and service (47.2%) sectors are relatively less exposed to informality, especially the service sector in the Arab States and Asia and the Pacific.

One of the most unfortunate aspects in the legal history of India is that the country has not endeavoured till to the last century to enact law for the security and protection of those people who are working in the informal sector without having any kind of statutory safeguard. It was only in 2008, the Parliament of India enacted Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008 to provide for the social security and welfare of the unorganised workers. The act provides for the constitution of National Social Security Board for the Unorganised sector at the Central level and State Social Security Board for the Unorganised sector at the state level which shall recommend formulation of social security schemes viz life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, old age protection and any other benefit as may be determined by the Government for unorganised workers. Similarly the Indian Parliament also enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 to regulate street vendors in public areas and protect their rights. The Act has been passed in the parliament with the objectives of to protect the livelihood rights of street vendors as well as regulate street vending through demarcation of vending zones, conditions for and restrictions on street vending.

In fact both these two acts are the sources from which the people working in the informal sector are getting statutory inspirations for accessing social security and employment protection. The Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008 has been a foundation for the PIEs for securing labour rights like minimum wages, pensions, health and maternity benefits and unemployment compensation. As the people engaged in the informal sector are lacking any kind of social protection, security of tenure and opportunities for skill up gradation and training, the said act is a landmark statutory achievement for providing social security protection to the said class of labour. Moreover, lack of consolidated struggle for securing the respective rights also a cause of their inability to achieve any improvement in their working conditions. Both these two acts have given a space to the PIEs to organise and mobilise themselves to raise collective voices to demand their rights. Unfortunately, both these acts have been implemented in Assam in a casual manner.

For illustrating such casual attitude of the state authority, we may cite many examples whereby the administrative authorities of the city have carried out several eviction drive against the street vendors without prior information and notice. In 2018 these vendors have faced another eviction after two eviction drives carried out in 2017.

Surprisingly, during the year when the Street Vendors Act (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending), 2014 act was passed in the parliament, two eviction drives were carried out in Guwahati. Though it is mandatory under the said Act to do survey before assuming any eviction, but such evictions were carried out bypassing the above mentioned rule. It means that the GMC authority has not yet completed the survey for identifying vending zone.

Similarly, in case of construction workers, the government of Assam framed the state rule after one decade of the original act came into force and the Assam Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board was formed in only in 2007. Therefore, it needs a consolidated effort by harnessing majority of the labour and working classes under a common platform to make pressure over the state authority to implement properly these acts. Without having a common platform for the working classes for their causes, scattered activities and struggles give little result in asserting rights for the said classes of people. Moreover, as the interest of these classes does not reflect the aspirations of the middle classes, particularly the urban middle class, their voices always remain unheard. Whenever a collective approach is taken for the benefit of the working and labor class, spontaneous support and co-operation usually do not come from that quarter that represents the mainstream media and intellect.

Therefore, a long-term approach and strategy is required for developing collectiveness among the PIEs by involving different unions and people who raise voices for the rights of the workers engaged in the informal sector.

Kishor Kumar Kalita

( Kishor Kumar Kalita is a writer, columnist and a practicing advocate in Gauhati High Court. He has written a number of books on different social issues. He can be reached at [email protected] )