A Pandemic-specific ‘Emergency Essentials Kit’ for Children in the Migrant BoP communities Anaghaa Chakrapani School of Design Avantika University Ujjain, India anaghaa.chakrapani@avantika.edu.in Rahul Bhaumik Faculty of Architecture and Design PES University Bangalore, India rahulbhaumik@pes.edu Tarun Kumar Centre for Product Design & Manufacturing Indian Institute of Science Banglore, India tarunkumar@iisc.ac.in Kriti Bhalla School of Architecture Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore, India kritibhalla@msrit.edu Sanjana Shivakumar School of Architecture Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore, India sanjanashivakumar17@gmail.com Sunny Prajapati Faculty of Architecture and Design PES University Bangalore, India sunnyprakashp@pes.edu Abstract— COVID-19 has now been declared a ‘Global Pandemic’ by WHO. The pandemic has affected more than 200 countries since its first outbreak in December 2019. The spread of COVID-19 resulted in a state of lockdown globally. India too, closed its borders to contain the virus. Those worst affected by the pandemic are migrant workers at the ‘Bottom of Pyramid’ (BoP) due to unemployment and lack of monetary aid. Family sustenance has been difficult for them, with children impacted physically and psychologically. This paper proposes a Product- Service System (PSS) that provides essential emergency kits to infants (6-12 months), children (1-6 years), and their mothers during such emergencies. This PSS scheme strives to fulfil their basic hygiene, nutritional and psychological requirements. Three types of kits are distributed to the migrant families using an online service platform. The entire system operates on a sustainable, single-use plastic-free design. The case study of this humanitarian scheme is specific to India but is also valid for other developing nations. Reaching out to the communities is achieved through a smartphone app and website. The system uses ICT infrastructure to connect various stakeholders and can be admirably adapted to the framework of an inclusive smart city. Keywords— Pandemic, PSS, Migrant BOP Workers, Relief, Children, COVID-19, App development, donation system I. INTRODUCTION The novel coronavirus or the COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China and within months has already made its mark across all the seven continents [1, 2]. In numerous countries, a lockdown was announced to ensure social distancing as the virus can spread from human to human via droplet transmission. India witnessed its first case on 14th January 2020 in Kerala [3]. Although the COVID-19 cases started to increase, the situation is rapidly evolving amidst strict controls [4]. On 17th March 2020, India witnessed its 125th case. At this point, the Government of India imposed a nationwide lockdown—with effect from 25th March 2020—to curb the further spread of the virus within the nation [5]. Migrant workers were affected the most by this drastic decision. The COVID-19 induced lockdown has pushed the migrant workers (including women and children) to travel to their hometowns in search of livelihood and safe accommodations. A ‘migrant worker’ is a person who either migrates away from his/her native place to pursue work within or outside their home country. Migrant workers generally have no intention of permanently staying in the country or region where they work [6]. In India, there are 139 million internal migrant workers, out of which approximately fifteen million are children [7]. Women make up an overwhelming 70.7 per cent majority of internal migrants [7]. In India, 30 per cent of domestic migrants belong to the 15-29 age group. Migrant workers are compelled to live in dismal conditions leading to poverty. Fig. 1. Daily wages earned by the Indian workers. The Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) refers to a category of people who live in abject poverty and are placed at the bottom of the economic pyramid [8]. The world has around 2.7 billion people in the BoP, which is 37% of the global population [9]. Migrant workers who form a massive portion of the BoP society are usually involved in physically demanding jobs and earn a maximum daily wage of $3 per day (fig. 1). As they mostly work in unorganised sectors, they are vulnerable and not entitled to the benefits of various social security schemes provided by the government [8]. In India, the population living at the bottom of the pyramid has been affected the most. A lockdown scenario for these workers implies unemployment, inability to relocate to their hometown, lack of monetary resources and an additional burden of supporting their family [10, 11]. Most of them, who are daily wagers have lost their jobs. With no social security, they are adversely facing problems in meeting their basic daily needs and minimum requirements for their families. A stringent lockdown leading to the closure of inter-state borders have forced them to remain in their current location of residence away from their native place, which further puts pressure on their living conditions [12]. Families with infants and young children are at a highly compromised situation. Despite the efforts of the government to provide relief packages for migrant workers nationwide [13], recent findings © IEEE 2020. This article is free to access and download, along with rights for full text and data mining, re-use and analysis