Work From Home maybe one of the few positive outcomes of the NCOVID 19 Pandemic II Part 1

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse Foundation

Work From Home (WFH) emerged as the most practical and viable option in trying to mitigate NCOVID 19 after the World Health Organisation of the United Nations declared on 11^th March 2020 that the Novel Corona Virus or N-COVID 19 has become a global pandemic.

Following this, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a one day self-imposed curfew for 19^th March and then a 21 day “Lockdown”. Narendra Modi asked employers not to retrench workers and to pay them during the Lockdown, which he said may be longer than initially envisaged. PM Modi called for Work From Home and reassured Indians that there will be no shortage of food supply, medicines and essential commodities and services.

For assuming that everyone is connected to an internet connection on computers, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was criticised by political parties and activists; they accused Modi of not understanding the plight of the migrants and daily wagers who could not quite work from home (WFH).

20 million people work in the unorganised sector without livelihood security as they work as daily wagers. They are the underbelly of the cash economy of India where the rich get richer at the cost of the starving millions.

The Indian economy was tottering within four hours of the announcement as millions lost work and starvation stared at them bleakly. With fear gripping them as they became out of work, homeless and facing starvation the migrants embarked on life threatening foot marches cross continent tormented by loss of job and food security.

India’s economic underbelly snapped. The unplanned move jolted the economy and the workforce very hard. Social distancing - experts aver - is here to stay until we find an effective vaccine to the disease. 

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives and processes personally and professionally for people across the globe. With few signs of the virus relenting and a vaccine still months if not years away, the world is realising that one needs to learn to live with it - stay calm and carry on.

WFH will be a sustainable option for economic development given its advantages. There will be a drastic reduction in fossil fuel consumption as well as in Carbon emissions. It gives flexible work timings especially to women, who can attend to their dependents at home. Gender harassment at workplace will hopefully be a thing of the past. Yet domestic violence may increase as UN Secretary General Increase in domestic violence horifying: UNSG agonised after the Lockdown started.

WFH gives access to the internet to a larger proportion of people at the homes of the employees, thus giving time and space for diverse thinking and harvesting of more talent. Rewarding such nascent talent can be ignored only at the peril to the economy and sustainable inclusive development. WFH is user friendly to the differently abled workforce too. Streamlining segments of the brick and mortar economy for a thorough fit then, is the need of the hour.

“In a large country like India, thinking this through and delivering the social protection measures within the period of Lockdown is a challenge. With careful planning and strategizing, it can be done” says Professor Janki Andharia Dean of the School of Disaster Studies in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai speaking to Digital Discourse Foundation

WFH can potentially develop Block chain solutions for anthropocentric challenges like the migration triggered by COVID 19 related Lockdown in India. Think of community kitchens dotting the rural landscape catering food security for migrants on the highways… Block chain in tandem with e commerce is an immediate solution that comes to one’s mind.

“Companies which insisted on their employees coming to the office daily and be present in the daily stand up meetings have figured out that stand-ups / attendance in office can be conducted via Webex and Zoom; your availability status on Skype marks your attendance and you have one less excuse to give for coming late - caught in traffic” says Arun Gopinath, Project Manager in a leading MNC in Bangalore speaking to Digital Discourse Foundation.

When the Lockdown was announced India’s National Biodiversity Authority was in the midst of negotiations with more than a dozen stakeholders, and 270 participants to propose amendments to the Biodiversity Act 2002 – a law that regulates Biodiversity Conservation – an area of work so esoteric that it is beyond the realm of forest conservation.

The officers in the negotiations transited successfully to online meetings on Zoom and Webex to carry on the negotiations, seeking to arrive at consensus for amendment to the complex legislation.

Sectors like fisheries cannot benefit from WFH

But this kind of online negotiations or transactions cannot easily manifest in sectors like fisheries or vegetable marketing. In Tamilnadu the fisheries department launched an app Meengal to order fish online.

“Customers order the name of the fish and the quantity they want and this is delivered to their doorstep. But this is limited to Chennai Circle only. Again, digital platforms need to synchronise” with e commerce platforms for delivery and logistics says Ms. S. Velvizhi marine biologist in charge of fisheries in the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Tuticorin, in Tamilnadu, in an email interview to Digital Discourse Foundation

Day-to-day earning of fishers is affected in all coastal districts of Tamilnadu. Small scale fishers who fish near-shore are struggling to market their catch with new norms and (in the) short time available for sales during the Lockdown.

Rates are about 30 per cent lower now. Income of fish vendors, mainly women, has been badly affected due to the pandemic as people are purchasing less fish at lower rates. The compromise will be on food security because the stress of micro finance adds up to the squeeze for women fish vendors who market the catch while men do the fishing. Their meagre earning is directly proportional to the food they eat.

Migrants are the worst hit

Migrant labour has moved to Kerala and Karnataka for fishing activities. They are without work now due to national lockdown and they are unable to come back given the premium in train travel after the Lockdown is being gradually lifted. Some households of the migrant labourers have been reduced to one meal a day.

“With the export market also on standby, the entire fishing sector supply chain and its allied sectors are adversely affected. For example With supply chain disrupted, thousands of ice-plant workers, fishers and vendors and youth engaged in diesel supply to the boats are losing their daily wages” adds Ms. S. Velvizhi.

The largely illiterate and semi skilled workers toiled hard in an alien land to earn their bread and butter. Digital literacy has hardly been their priority so far. Expecting them to become digitally savvy is unreal according to politicians and activists.

Indeed their foreboding was prescient to a large extent... Having lost their jobs, without savings and fear of starvation, millions of migrant labourers started walking back to their hometowns without public transport, food, water and sanitation.

Tragic stories of exhaustion, avoidable deaths and accidents emerged awakening the conscience of the corrupted economic order which in any case struggled to fake concern by offering food packets water, medicines and other essentials only to the destitutes known to them.

Cynical millionaires refused to give cash donation for they don’t get income tax exemption. They even said “give a hungry man fish and he will come back for more, give him a fishing oar instead”. Indeed that caps the sorry tale of the cash rich but struggling Indian economy.

Daily wage earners are largely engaged as domestic helpers, cooks, cleaners, drivers for the millionaires; not entirely computer savvy, the digital world of internet based economy is not quite for them. Their skill set indeed drives the underbelly of the Indian cash economy itself.

Ajith Kumar Behera from Kendrapara in Odisha works as a part time cook in eight different households daily in Bangalore @ of about 2 hours per household to make ends meet. “I cannot even open You Tube by myself on my smartphone to understand the fantastic recipes my employers send me by Whatsapp! How can I then cook such fantastic looking food for them? Recipes are in English or Hindi, I can barely read Odiya he exclaims, exasperated.

“Now that is my vocational challenge” he muses half in jest “but the government expects us to know how to operate digital wallets! How do you expect me to understand the digital world of banking, e wallets and travel booking etc? All these services need computer literacy, and working dexterously with emails etc on computers. That is not for us” he tells me steadfast.

"I am a little sore that the Government of India was deaf to our plight. If I go back to Odisha I do not get paid work like I get in Bangalore. So I would rather stay here. Fortunately for me my employers in Bangalore have been kind but I know many of my regional compatriots who are caught between the Devil and the Deep Sea” Behera told Digital Discourse Foundation

To be Continued