Migrants

1. Understanding migration as a social-protection issue

Internal migration involves a change in usual residence within national boundaries. Labour mobility also includes seasonal and circular movements that may not involve a lasting change of residence. Migrants are therefore not a homogeneous category: a construction worker moving through contractors, a domestic worker settling in a city and a family undertaking seasonal agricultural work face different risks. International migration raises additional questions of citizenship, recruitment and consular protection and should be distinguished from internal migration.

Migration can increase earnings, diversify household risks and generate remittances for source regions. Destination economies gain workers in construction, manufacturing, transport, hospitality, domestic work and agriculture. Migration itself is not necessarily evidence of distress. Vulnerability arises when mobility combines with informality, insecure employment, discrimination, unsafe housing and weak access to public services. Policy should enable safe mobility rather than attempt to prevent migration.

Census 2011 counted about 45.6 crore internal migrants by place of last residence. This figure must not be presented as the number of migrant workers: marriage and movement with households account for substantial migration, particularly among women. Short-duration and circular movements are harder to capture through residence-based statistics. Census data, household surveys, employer records and administrative databases measure different populations and should not be treated as interchangeable.

• Source regions need livelihood diversification, reliable employment support and protection for family members who remain behind.
• Destination regions need inclusive services, affordable rental housing, worker protection and adequate municipal capacity.

2. Why migrants fall through welfare systems

Many welfare arrangements assume that households live and work in one place. Ration cards, school records, local beneficiary lists and administrative verification may remain attached to the source village. Destination authorities may demand documents that newly arrived workers cannot easily produce. Frequent movement, changing telephone numbers, language differences and limited digital access compound these problems. A formal entitlement therefore does not necessarily translate into effective access.

Employment insecurity is another major pathway to exclusion. Subcontracting and oral hiring arrangements obscure responsibility for wages, workplace safety and compensation. Workers may lack proof of employment or find that a contractor disappears after an accident or wage dispute. Piece-rate work, debt-linked advances and dependence on employer-provided accommodation can reduce bargaining power. Women migrants additionally face unequal wages, harassment, unpaid care burdens and limited maternity support.

Housing insecurity intensifies health and educational disadvantages. Overcrowded settlements, shared sanitation, unsafe water and exposure to heat or pollution increase illness risks. Migrant children may experience interrupted schooling, language barriers and movement into work. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, persons with disabilities and religious or linguistic minorities may face intersecting exclusions. Families split across locations also need arrangements that protect both travelling workers and dependants at home.

• Administrative exclusion: documentation, residence verification, authentication failures and fragmented beneficiary databases.
• Labour-market exclusion: informal contracts, weak inspection, wage theft and inadequate accident protection.
• Social exclusion: stigma, linguistic barriers, insecure housing and limited representation in local decision-making.

3. Constitutional and legal foundations

Articles 14 and 21 provide the foundations of equality and protection of life and personal liberty. Articles 19(1)(d), 19(1)(e) and 19(1)(g) protect citizens’ movement, residence and occupational freedom, subject to their respective constitutional limitations. Article 23 prohibits trafficking and forced labour. Directive Principles, including Articles 39, 41, 42 and 47, guide policy towards livelihood security, public assistance, humane working conditions, maternity relief and public health.

The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 established a dedicated framework for covered establishments and contractor-recruited interstate workers. It provided for registration and licensing, wage safeguards, displacement allowance, journey allowance and specified welfare facilities. Its narrow recruitment-based coverage left many workers who moved independently outside its special protections, while enforcement was weakened by informality and inadequate records.

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 provides a broader definition covering specified self-migrated interstate workers as well as recruited workers, subject to statutory conditions. The Code on Social Security, 2020 provides a framework encompassing unorganised workers and schemes for gig and platform workers. In legal answers, distinguish enactment from the commencement, rules and operational implementation of individual provisions rather than assuming that every statutory promise is already delivered.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 provide important rights-based anchors. During the pandemic, the Supreme Court’s proceedings on the problems and miseries of migrant labourers addressed food access, registration and portability. The broader constitutional lesson is that mobility should not make a person administratively invisible.

4. Social-protection architecture and its limits

One Nation One Ration Card allows eligible beneficiaries to obtain foodgrains through enabled fair-price shops outside their home location. Split transactions can help workers draw part of a household entitlement at the destination while family members access the balance at the source. However, portability does not solve exclusion from National Food Security Act lists. Authentication difficulties, lack of awareness and dealer-level barriers also require accessible exception handling and grievance redress.

Launched in August 2021, e-Shram creates a national database of unorganised workers and assigns a Universal Account Number. It can support worker identification, welfare convergence and crisis response. Its effectiveness depends on assisted registration, updated occupational and location information, responsible data sharing and connections to actual schemes. Counting registrations is not equivalent to measuring social-security coverage.

Ayushman Bharat–Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana provides portability of covered hospitalisation benefits for eligible beneficiaries through empanelled hospitals. It does not provide universal coverage for every migrant or replace primary care, outpatient services and public-health outreach. The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s Universal Account Number supports continuity across covered jobs, while many informal migrants remain outside contributory systems.

Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Boards offer a sector-specific welfare route, although registration, renewal and interstate continuity can be difficult. Affordable Rental Housing Complexes, introduced under PMAY-Urban in 2020, address rental accommodation needs of urban migrants and the poor. MGNREGA supports eligible rural households, including returnees seeking unskilled manual work, but is not an urban employment guarantee.

5. A rights-based reform agenda

The priority is portable entitlements combined with accessible destination services. Food security, healthcare, schooling, childcare and worker welfare require interoperable systems, but interoperability must not mean unrestricted surveillance. Data collection should be proportionate, secure and linked to a clearly identified service purpose. Assisted offline access and alternatives when authentication fails are essential safeguards against digital exclusion.

Cooperative federalism should connect source and destination states through worker facilitation centres, multilingual helplines, grievance referral and emergency protocols. Urban local bodies need finance and staffing linked to actual service populations, including mobile residents. Employers and contractors should remain accountable for wages, safety and statutory contributions; registration drives must not substitute for enforcement or shift employers’ obligations onto workers.

Policy must also support family wellbeing through flexible school admission, bridge courses, anganwadi access, maternity services and safe rental housing near employment. Better migration statistics should capture seasonality and circularity without making registration a prerequisite for basic humanitarian assistance. Evaluation should measure successful benefit receipt, continuity of services, resolution of complaints and reduced vulnerability, rather than merely cards issued or portals launched.

• Plan emergency food, shelter, healthcare and safe transport before crises occur.
• Include trade unions, worker organisations, women’s groups and migrant communities in policy design.
• Treat migrants as contributors and rights-holders, not only as temporary recipients of relief.

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