Migrant Workers in India — The Numbers, The Rights, And The Policy Gaps
The 2011 Census recorded approximately 450 million internal migrants in India. Of those, the segment that matters for policy — labour migrants who have moved for work and are not domiciled where they work — is estimated at 100 to 140 million. That is roughly one in every eight Indians. It is also a population that almost no political party has built a serious policy platform for.
What the law says
The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 was the foundational law. It required contractors to register inter-state migrant workers, provide displacement allowance, ensure return passage, and provide minimum amenities at the workplace. The law was repealed in 2020 when the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions consolidated it with several other labour laws. The Code was passed but most implementing rules have not been notified.
Why the 1979 Act failed
The Act required contractor registration, but most migrants in India do not have formal contractors — they work in the informal sector through middlemen who are not registered under any law. The Act applied to inter-state migration, but the majority of distress migration in India is intra-state (rural to urban within the same state), which fell outside the law entirely. Enforcement was vested in state labour departments that were structurally under-funded.
What 2020 revealed
The March 2020 lockdown exposed every gap in the system. Millions of migrant workers walked home along highways because public transport was suspended. They had no access to PDS rations in their work cities because their ration cards were registered in their home states. They had no claim on health services in their work cities because welfare schemes were domicile-locked. The phrase 'one nation, one ration card' was launched as a policy response.
Where 'one nation, one ration card' actually stands
The portability scheme has been rolled out across all 36 states and UTs. Beneficiaries can use their ration card in any state that has integrated with the system. Implementation gaps remain: technology errors in PoS machines, language barriers in shop interactions, and beneficiaries who have not yet linked Aadhaar to ration card. But for the first time, a migrant worker can access PDS rations in their work city without going home.
What is still missing
Three things. First, portable health insurance — Ayushman Bharat is national, but state-specific health schemes (the larger source of out-of-pocket cost reduction) are not portable. Second, portable education entitlements — children of migrant workers are routinely denied admission to government schools at the destination city. Third, voting rights at the destination — migrant workers are registered to vote in their home states, which means they have no electoral power over the politicians who govern the cities where they actually live and work.
The political maths
Migrant workers as a voting bloc are, on paper, the largest single demographic in India. They are also the least politically organised because they are geographically dispersed and their electoral power is spread across their home states rather than concentrated at destinations. This is the structural reason no party builds a platform for them: the votes don't compound where the workers live.
Further reading
Migrant workers in India on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_workers_in_India. The Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) produced the most thorough 2020 report on the lockdown. The Ministry of Labour and Employment publishes Code on Occupational Safety updates.
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