EFICOR'S Response To COVID - 19 Second Wave Update-12

Dear Partners,

Migration is part and parcel of life in India. According to the 2011 Census, India has 450 million internal migrants based on place of last residence, or 37 percent of the total population. Most of these migrants come traditionally from the densely populated and less urbanized states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, with major receiving states being the more industrialized and urbanized states of Maharashtra, Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

In March 2020, India came under a national lockdown due to the spread of Covid. By June, newspapers reported that more than 6.7 million migrants had returned to 116 districts in 6 states from urban centres. Images of migrants returning home by walking hundreds and even thousands of kilometers lingers in our minds. These migrants not only faced extreme challenges while returning home but they also came home to an uncertain future. Although the situation was not as severe in the second wave, in Delhi alone more than 800,000 migrant workers returned home within the first 4 weeks of the lockdown.

EFICOR’s focus, even in our regular programmes, has been to work in rural areas to reduce migration so that communities can thrive and flourish where they live. As part of the recovery process from the horrific health and economic impact of Covid, India’s Prime Minister called for “ Repair and prepare” - to continue repairing health infrastructure and our economies and insulating our planet against the next pandemic, ensuring we focus on a sustainable lifestyle that stops ecological degradation, strengthening cooperation in furthering research as well as innovation.”

Our intervention through this second phase is to do just that. To support, especially the migrants who have returned home, to facilitate the communities to rebuild, to build a “green economy” and to repair and survive the impact of the pandemic in all possible ways. Thank you for standing with us!

Ms Kuki Rokhum
Lead - Training and RM
EFICOR