COVID 19 AND THE BRICK INDUSTRY

Covid 19 Pandemic and the Brick Industry

On 24 March due to the Covis 19 Pandemic the Govt imposed a complete lockdown of industry and transport throughout India, giving workers and bosses 4 hours notice. Most brick kilns were closed from this date. Workers found themselves without wages and unable to pay off the advance of cash they had received when they signed up to work at the kiln in November (bonded labour payment). Those migrant workers in kilns who could do so returned home. Many were unable to do so and remained stranded at a kiln hundreds of miles from home without wages. Trains and buses did not run and for a time trucks were not allowed to cross state boundaries. Kiln owners in many cases fed the trapped workers a basic daily diet.

Kilns were allowed to re-start work in May, but employing only 15% of the staff they had done before lockdown. Subsequently, as the lockdown was eased in much of India, many workers have been able to return home. Some special trains were arranged by the Govt. It is not known whether brick kiln migrants, among the poorest people in India, were able to avail of the special trains. The monsoon rains, affecting most of India from June have in any case closed down the brick industry until the end of the monsoon in October.

Owners of kilns, and the whole brick industry, have been thrown into extreme financial difficulty by the lockdown, from which they may take years to recover. The brick kiln labour force, mostly migrants from the poorest districts of Odissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, UP, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, who were already struggling to survive from year to year, now face more extreme poverty. In most cases state governments are giving only dry rations to the poor.

The spread of the Pandemic in India was only slowed by the lockdown. The disease is spreading at an increasing rate in many parts of the country. It is most severe in large cities. Workers returning home from these places are unknowingly bringing the virus back to their families and neighbourhoods.

It is inevitable that those groups - Unions and NGOs trying to bring beneficial change in the conditions of labour in the kilns will now face greater challenges, and are less likely to get positive action from the National and State Governments.

Please follow this link to read the statement of the leader of the Jalandhar (Panjab) Brick Kilns Owners Association on the impact of the lockdown and virus on the kilns there : https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/jalandhar/brick-kiln-industry-might-take-years-to-recoup-104706