At 7 a.m. every day, Vala Ram Gameti, 32, sets off from his home at Koviya village in southern Rajasthan to the nearest market, about 3 km away. He takes an hour for the day’s prep–chopping onions, carrots, cabbage, and stewing sauces. By 9 a.m., he pulls up the shutters of Bankyarani Chinese Corner, “the first-ever Chinese food stall in the area” as he proclaims it to be. He set it up after losing his job as a cook in a fast-food restaurant in Gujarat and returning home in March, when a national lockdown was announced.
Gameti is one of estimated 10.5 million migrant workers who returned to villages after the national lockdown, according to data submitted by the government in parliament. More than half a year after the reverse migration from cities during the lockdown, how are migrant workers coping?
In a three-part series on how the Covid-19 crisis has impacted livelihoods, we…