ABSTRACT
Migration, which is the movement of people from their usual place of residence to another place either within the country or internationally, is triggered by economic, social, or political factors. In 2011, India had 456 million migrants equating to nearly 38% of the total population of 1.21 billion. 99% of the migrants were internal and 1% were immigrants. 88% or 396 million of the internal migrants accounted for intra-state migration. Maharashtra and Delhi were the largest destination states, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were the largest source of inter-state migrants (Census, 2011).
In 2020, when a nationwide lockdown was imposed on 24 March as a measure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in India, migrants were among the most affected, especially those involved in the services and construction sectors (Chaudhary, 2020). In order to identify how the lives of migrant construction workers were affected by the lockdown, the Anant Centre for Sustainability at Anant University undertook research on migrant construction workers in Maharashtra from September to December 2021. The 217 respondents from Mumbai were randomly selected from slums and chawls where migrant construction workers live. The key findings of the research are contrary to the generally assumed situation of migrant workers during and after the COVID-19 lockdown.
