Earlier this week, the Labor Minister presented the figure in Parliament, specifying that the deaths occurred between 2019 and 2021. Several studies had already detected strong psychological distress among internal migrants caused by job loss during confinement. . By some estimates, poverty levels are even higher than before the pandemic.
Milan () – Between 2019 and 2021, at least 112,000 day laborers committed suicide in India. The figure was presented in Parliament earlier this week and Labor Minister Bhupender Yadav showed the numbers were rising: 32,563 workers died in 2019, 37,666 in 2020 and 42,004 in 2021.
But in the three years analyzed, the total number of suicides was 456,000: according to government data, among them were 66,912 housewives, 53,661 self-employed workers, 43,420 employees, 43,385 unemployed, 35,950 students and 31,839 people employed in the agricultural sector.
Numbers that give an idea of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy and society of the country, hit by several waves and subjected to harsh confinement since March 2020. During that time, the unemployment rate shot up to 24% (in normal times it is around 7%) and thousands of migrant workers from rural areas and disadvantaged social classes were forced to return to their towns (sometimes even on foot due to the suspension of transport), leaving the urban centers to the who had moved in search of work.
According to the most up-to-date data (as of 2011), there were at least 140 million internal migrants who provided cheap labor to the cities: day laborers, street fruit and vegetable vendors, rickshaw drivers, and cleaners. Millions of people who, out of the blue, found themselves without work and who, not receiving state subsidies (96% of those surveyed in one study said they had not received any type of aid), could not eat anything for several days in a row.
It is precisely among migrant workers where various studies detected the highest rates of psychological distress during the pandemic: research showed that 63.3% of the participants suffered from loneliness, 48% perceived a decrease in their social ties, 50% experienced fear of death and more than 58 % experienced frustration and tension. Three-quarters of those surveyed were also diagnosed with depression, caused mainly by anxiety over job loss and the inability to care for loved ones.
Although the Indian economy is now on the up, with GDP growth estimated at over 6% (indicating a slowdown from previous years), hunger and poverty rates increased dramatically during the pandemic. Government data shows that the percentage of people earning less than $1.90 a day – what the World Bank considers the extreme poverty line – went from 5% in March 2020 to 47% the following month in the case of cities, more affected by the restrictions than rural areas. Despite the subsequent reopening and resumption of activities, the rates have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels: according to some projections, at the end of 2021 there were still 115 million people below the extreme poverty line, i.e. , 44 million more than in 2019.
These figures were confirmed at the end of 2022 with World Bank estimates, according to which the pandemic created 71 million new poor people, of whom at least a third were in India alone. But, as the institution stressed, the proportion could be higher if official government figures on poverty are ever published, statistics that have not been released in India since 2011 (probably also to try to hide the country’s problems from the world). . Instead, the World Bank used for its calculations figures from the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey conducted by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a think tank that monitors the national economy.
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