The impact of current drought on building masons in India

The after-effects of a natural rain drought is such that it starts affecting a common rural building mason straight away. Earlier half-dependent on his crops and half on nearby people, he now starts to migrate to cities or other places looking for work which would earn. He could have changed his profession, which he many a times does, but now the scale of a new economy and construction boom in India provides him work requiring almost the same skill set, thus a more relevant source of livelihood - mind this, just the livelihood.

To tackle this near chronic problem some programmes backed by the government are already in place, but they lack the support and vigour they need to address the scale within which they exist; so egalitarians are disenchanted. Now it seems, one surrogate alternative that everybody has accepted is that managing the country’s economics shall improve lives. The Indian policy makers have declared that they have heaved a respite sigh, because the estimated GDP is around 9% expected this year, and the failure of agriculture because of lack of water i.e. the rains would lead to only 1% reduction to the above GDP. In other words, the high GDP will absorb the drought shock, and the failure of agriculture because of lack in water improvement policies of the country would not stunt country’s growth again this year.

The claim from above is that people will lead better lives, but which kind of people, is yet to be clarified. For the GDP, of which more than fifty percent mainly comes from the service sector and twenty another from manufacturing, is it a straight forward answer that more than eighty percent population of the country affected by this drought will benefit? Building workers are a major chunk of them. However, it seems that although policies aim for equality, the polity is concerned about its vote bank. Arguably, I will still term this populist news that the government quickly declared 246 districts (out of around 500) in the country as drought affected and special measures are needed, as something positive. The states have been informed to do their best bit and the centre would pay along with. Store enough food in the granaries and guarantee 100 man day labour job. Keep the poor man alive... I call this positive (though not really comparable to the humanist claim for better living conditions), because doing or saying something is way better than keeping mum, as has been in the past. Also, it is a little better that hurrying up with relief trucks.

One obvious way is by channelizing the GDP earnings towards these people suffering. But, for how long will the numbers work in favour? One fundamental way to arrest this seemingly chronic problem could be by improving the skills, capacities and living conditions of these workmen. These improved skills shall then also be helpful for constructing the badly needed quality water management infrastructure, so to say, to manage drought and floods, which must come in place sooner rather than later. In other words, asking for radical improvements in the way water is managed, as well as expecting improvement in the capacities of the construction workforce, is a dire need of today.