Poor And Poverty Editorial Image

The capital city which is experiencing a population boom is further coping with the burden of migrant labourers whose presence in the city has been on the increasing trend in the last few years. A study by the Society for Social Transformation and Environment Protection has traced the origin, the migration pattern, the educational status and faith practiced by these labourers who inevitably take shelter in any one of the poverty pockets in the city. The city is strewn with poverty pockets which epitomizes the squalor that is part of civilization. Based on an analysis of hundreds of samples, the study has concluded that almost 91 per cent of the migrant labourers in the city are from Assam and 9 per cent of them are from Bihar, West Bengal and other states of India. Among the districts of Assam, Dhubri district has the highest percentage of daily wage labour in the city comprising 14.33 per cent, followed by Goalpara at 13.67 per cent, Barpeta at 13 per cent, Kamrup at 12.67 per cent and Nalbari at 11.67 per cent. The break up also says that lower Assam has the highest percentage of poor labourers. The gender breakup of labour shows that almost 60 per cent are adult male, 28 per cent are adult women 7 per cent are boy child labour and 5 per cent are girl child labour. The study which has also touched on the distribution of labour by religion says that almost 50 per cent are Hindu and remaining are from Islam and other religion. However this distribution pattern fluctuates at certain labour markets. At the Hatigaon labour market, 20 per cent labour are from the Hindu faith and 80 per cent from Islam. On the other hand, an analysis of 328 samples from 10 labour markets in the city says that more than 53 per cent of labours are illiterate. “The labourers who attained primary and middle school standard constitutes 28 and 10 per cent respectively. Interestingly, the percentage of HS and BA standards also constitutes around 2 per cent each, which is an indicator of high rate of educated unemployment,” says the study