Local rural institutions response to COVID Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had negatively impacted the entire world economy unprecedentedly, and India is no exception. The informal sector was hit hard by the lockdown and saw an unprecedented fall in its economic activities. The pandemic turned out to be more disastrous for the migrants. As reported in various newspapers, most migrants and their families were left unattended by their employers. According to a survey conducted during the lockdown in April 2020 by the Stranded Workers Action Network, 90 per cent of migrant workers in the country did not get paid by their employers, 96 percent received no ration from the government, and 70 per cent did not get any cooked food, during the lockdown. These migrants’ worker was primarily from eastern UP and Bihar. Even rural health infrastructure was not adequate to fight the pandemic in Bihar. With COVID came an array of misinformation which to some extent changed social norms in society. In this study, we use personal interviews done in Ahwarkudia village panchayat to study how rural institutions responded to the pandemic.