COVID-19, Reverse Migration and Crisis Management: A Study of the Model of Government of Uttar Pradesh (India)

Abstract

With the outbreak of the global pandemic of COVID-19, India witnessed one of the largest reverse migrations in its entire history. Amid continuously streaming heart-rending visuals of migrant workers struggling to somehow return to their place of origin, Uttar Pradesh emerged as the recipient of huge 3.2 million migrant workers employed in the informal sector. Accepting, welcoming, helping, encouraging and offering employment to those destitute workers amid the pandemic was a difficult task for the state government. An appropriate management of this problem has made it a classic case of crisis management by a state chief minister who dares to think beyond the reflex paranoia about resource crunch so as to come up with an improvised strategy. Purpose of this article is to discuss the crisis of reverse migration amid COVID-19 and the initiatives taken by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The article uses case study approach to analyse the problem of livelihood faced by the migrant workers and the innovative model of employment and rehabilitation envisioned and implemented by the state government. Based on secondary data, it observes positive impact of skill mapping and other key strategies of the Government of Uttar Pradesh.