Nationwide lockdown to combat Coronavirus Pandemic has great impact on the lives and livelihoods of all section of the society. It has made the lives of the migrant labourers – skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled quite miserable. Though National as well as the State Governments have appealed to all the employers to retain their workforce and provide them basic needs for their survival till the withdrawal of lockdown and the situation comes to normalcy, but the employers are hardly coming forward to rescue the labour force. Even the employers having international repute are compelling them to go back home during the lockdown period. This baffling situation has become the daydream for many migrant labourers stranded at their workplace towns, some are with their family members.

Rashmi Himirika, a tribal young girl of Kurumpeta village in Karlakana Gram Panchayat of Rayagada District was privileged to acquire skill training in Industrial Sewing Machine Operation under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) and had got placement in one of the reputed apparel industries in Bhubaneswar Industrial Estate. After 4 days of the lockdown, her employer sent back Rashmi to her village along with other workers by a private vehicle. When she reached home, even her own community didn’t allow her to enter into the village without undergoing Coronavirus Testing. Knowing the incident, the community frontline workers came forward to support her. She was sent to the Karlakana Gram Panchayat level ‘Quarantine Centre’ for 14 days isolation. When Rashmi was asked, whether she would like to go back Bhubaneswar to resume her work after lifting of the lockdown, she replied in a worried voice, “I do not want to restart my work at Bhubaneswar, but I have no other choice. There is hardly any apparel industry in my home district and unluckily none of the tailoring units here are using industrial sewing machine too”.

The case of Rashmi gives enough indication that skill training has to focus on skills considering the demand of local market, but not just to feed skilled labourers in industrial sites of other states. At the same time, primary skill has to be focused to promote self-employment among youths arresting redundant migration.