Six yrs later, migrant workers still trapped in a cycle of exploitation

Six years after the Covid lockdown-driven exodus, a familiar desperation is resurfacing. Recent protests by factory workers in Gurgaon and Noida suggest that the precarious reality of the migrant worker remains largely unchanged.

The immediate trigger for the protests was a demand for wage hikes. But the underlying discontent runs deeper: stagnant minimum wages, poor working conditions, unresolved overtime disputes, rising living costs - now exacerbated by LPG shortages and price spikes linked to the war in West Asia. Policy response underscores the lag.

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Haryana's revision of minimum wages for unskilled workers to ₹15,220 comes after a decade. UP, which last undertook a full revision in 2012, has relied on interim adjustments, raising Noida's base wage to ₹14,800 to contain unrest, rather than resolve it. Against this backdrop of delayed corrections, administrative responses risk missing the moment. Warnings - like those issued by Gautam Budh Nagar DM Medha Roopam to outsourcing agencies and contractors, threatening blacklisting and licence cancellations - may enforce order. But they do little to address structural anxieties driving workers onto the streets.

After the 2020 crisis, several programmes were introduced to improve migrant workers' living conditions. Six years later, these offer a useful test of whether the system has meaningfully evolved.

e-Shram portal, launched in 2021, sought to address a fundamental gap exposed by the pandemic: the absence of a reliable database of the vast unorganised workforce. By registering workers and seeding data with Aadhaar, it aimed to enable targeted welfare delivery and portability of benefits across states. On paper, progress is significant. Labour ministry's 2025 year-end review notes that over 314 mn workers have been registered, with integrations completed across platforms such as National Career Service, Maandhan, myScheme and Skill India Digital Hub.

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Yet, the data it generates points to a deeper constraint. Over 94% of registered workers earn less than ₹10,000 a month, and nearly three-fourths belong to SC and ST communities. Such low and unstable incomes leave little room for upward mobility, making access to quality education, healthcare and financial security in urban India persistently limited. The portal has improved visibility. But that visibility has yet to translate into reduced vulnerability.

Welfare portability has similarly evolved unevenly. As World Bank notes in 'Social Protection for India's Migrant Workers: Opportunities and Challenges' (2022), gains have been concentrated in a few areas, while most benefits remain tied to location despite expanding digital identification systems. The architecture - Aadhaar, e-Shram portal and related platforms - is now in place. But last-mile integration between identification and actual entitlement delivery remains weak.

A similar gap between intent and outcome is visible in Affordable Rental Housing Complexes scheme, launched in 2020. Conceived to address acute housing insecurity among migrant workers, it aimed to convert vacant public housing into rental units and incentivise new supply near workplaces.

However, implementation has been uneven. Uptake by states has been slow, private participation limited, and projects often located far from employment hubs, reducing their utility. A 2026 PRS Legislative Research housing analysis describes the scheme as 'conceptually necessary but structurally constrained', citing weak incentives, regulatory frictions and limited state-level execution. Reports of poor construction quality and under-occupied units further point to a disconnect between policy design and lived realities.

Meanwhile, broader labour reforms are yet to ease concerns. The four new labour codes, positioned as a step towards formalisation, have only recently begun full rollout after years of delay. Transition has been marked by uncertainty, particularly around its provisions, with workers expressing concern over longer work hours and diluted overtime protections. As noted by the 2026 Standing Committee on Labour, continued reliance on contract and informal work arrangements limits access to social security.

The outlook is further complicated by emerging risks. With IMD flagging a potentially below-normal monsoon, rural distress may intensify. Unlike in 2020, when MGNREGA acted as a safety valve, its replacement - VB-G RAM G - will now be tested.

Between an increasingly unaffordable city and rural parts offering diminishing fallback options, the migrant worker is still in a familiar bind. Distress has returned to industrial clusters, its underlying logic unchanged.

kumkum.dasgupta@timesofindia.com