Aajeevika Bureau - Ensure security and dignity to migrant worker communities

Seasonal migration for work is a pervasive reality in rural India. An overwhelming 140 million people or more are estimated to migrate from rural areas to urban labor markets, industries and farms. Migrants form the largest part of India's vast unorganized work sector. Their entry into the labour markets is marked with several endemic disadvantages. Devoid of critical skills, information and bargaining power, migrant workers often get caught in ad-hoc, exploitative and unsafe working and living conditions. Lack of identity and legal protection accentuates this problem. The hardships of migrant workers are especially magnified when state boundaries are crossed and the distance between the "source" and "destination" increases. For decades, migrant workers have been excluded from social security policy and wage protection. They are also easy victims of identity politics and parochialism, blamed for taking local jobs. They are not able to access entitlements like PDS at destination sites, because of the lack of inbuilt portability of these mechanisms. Their work and contribution to both the village and the city is devalued by both the state and society, making them vulnerable to big shocks like demonetization, the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying destruction of livelihood.

Aajeevika Bureau (AB) combines direct service delivery, advocacy, research and technical support in advancement of its work on issues of migrant workers. Through a network of field based Shramik Sahayata evam Sandarbh Kendras (Workers Support and Resource Centers), AB provides a range of services to migrants and their households. These services include registration and photo ID, skill training and placement, legal aid, collectivization, social security, financial services, health care and empowering families. AB runs field centers both at source (South Rajasthan) and at major destinations of migration (in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra). AB has undertaken a wide range of field based research into aspects of seasonal migration, labour and employment. Knowledge building adds to perspectives on this under-researched area and also helps the Bureau design new services and interventions for migrant groups. There are enormous gaps in policy for migrant workers at the state and national level and AB’s work helps define new agendas, priorities and programs that can be adopted by government and industry for the vast number of migrant workers. A special unit within AB also provides technical support and capacity building to a large number of organizations across India.

Aajeevika Bureau's vision is to become a leading agency working to ensure secure and dignified lives of communities dependent on migration and labour. Its mission is to provide lasting solutions to economic and socio-legal problems of migrant workers - directly as well as through partners - by creating replicable models offering services and security both at source and destination.

Through relief interventions and rebuilding of livelihoods, our interventions aim to attain short, medium and long term impact. To begin with relief efforts shall aim to ensure that migrants and their families are protected from starvation, are able to access state welfare benefits and cash transfers in a dignified manner. Further in the medium to long term, our interventions seek to improve access to dignified livelihoods, affordable health care services, safeguard vulnerable families from slipping into poverty, assist them in obtaining decent work at a fair wage and improving their overall financial health and well-being.