Lockdown due to COVID-19 & its impact on the migrants: A study on migrant workers of West Bengal

This paper discussed some of the emergent issues regarding the coronavirus pandemic's effect on the migrant worker of West Bengal. The impact of COVID 19 constitutes quite a large proportion among vulnerable population globally. The sudden enforcement of lockdown in India puts a life-sustaining situation to migrant without work and earning. Therefore, millions of migrant workers are lost their jobs, and many have returned to their villages, and many are stuck at the workplace. This study used census data and a telephonic survey with a mixed-method; fifty semi-structured questions were asked to West Bengal's out-migrants. We find that the migrants those stuck at destinations are facing severe food and economic crisis. The pandemic has impacted medical facilities, coupled with the COVID 19, create fear among them. Socio-comically marginalized people are mostly out-migrants. The majority of migrants have been faced food, financial crisis and health problems during the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown. The elderly are more vulnerable as they have multimorbidity and breathing problem, which is one of the critical health problems of elderly migrants. The study argues that monitoring migrant workers, incredibly informal sector workers, could have better prepared and early measures to contain the COVID-19 spread in India.