Let 2023 be an year of reforms to help the poor
We have any number of instances where those who do real hard work are not given the due wages and salaries and the statutory benefits. Though the Modi administration has created an ecosystem where the number of startups and hence entrepreneurship has multiplied to a great extent, those at the bottom of the pyramid, have continuously been hit very hard and the so-called reforms have hardly reached them.For example, those working in the massive construction sector are those who stay on the payments or on the spaces between the huge concrete structures that support the massive new flyovers of new metro projects being built in many parts of India. A cross-section of these people manage to board the EMU trains to go back to their own houses in the numerous villages that dot the main railway stations
However, the huge migrant labor from the Hindi-speaking belt of North India and those uprooted from the agricultural areas that do not yield good returns to the local farmers, do not get the right statutory benefits. Many of these projects are run by politicians who somehow manage to hoodwink the law; often times, politicians of all parties have some connection or the other with the big builders and nothing happens.
The law makers should strengthen the operating procedures and the rules to capture all data and ensure the safety and security of these unfortunate souls and those similarly placed at the bottom of the economic pecking order.
Let us hope that 2023 makes some difference to their lives.