Opinion In a Goa nightclub & beyond, migrants are invisible
The 2020 lockdown exposed the absence of a national registry, weak inter-state coordination, and no crisis-time grievance redressal mechanisms for inclusion and welfare delivery
Charred remains of the Birch by Romeo Lane restaurant after a fire broke out, claiming the lives of 25 people, in Arpora on Monday. (Source: ANI) Ghar se nikal kar gaye the, ghar se hi aa rahe hain aur ghar hi jaa rahe hain.” This line from Bheed (2023) captured a truth that defines India’s migrant workforce.
They leave home in search of economic opportunities, only to remain trapped in a cycle where their labour is utilised but their lives are not valued. The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2020-21 estimated that migrant workers form nearly 35 per cent of India’s urban population and power its development journey. Yet, they enter the public and policy consciousness mainly through moments of suffering and tragedy — the long march home in 2020 during the Covid lockdown and the recent Goa nightclub fire tragedy, where 20 of the 25 killed were migrant workers cooking in a basement kitchen without basic safety protections.
This is not an isolated tragedy. It lies on a continuum of incidents that have marked India’s post-pandemic years: Industrial fires in Gujarat, mine accidents in Jharkhand, brick-kiln collapses in UP, heatstroke deaths at NCR construction sites, tunnel collapses in Uttarakhand and Himachal and the Coromandel Express tragedy in Odisha. Each revealed a cruel picture. Fragmented central and state policies and governance frameworks continue to treat migrants as peripheral.
Earlier this month, the Defence Minister dedicated over 100 key defence infrastructure and road projects to the nation, executed by the Border Roads Organisation. Yet, migrant workers, primarily from Jharkhand, Bihar and Nepal, who have built defence corridors in the freezing terrains of Ladakh and other Himalayan states, remain uncelebrated and invisible.
Persistent academic and policy research and programmatic initiatives across states show that the vulnerability of migrant workers is not accidental. It stems from three persistent deficits: Invisibility, informality and institutional fragmentation. The 2020 lockdown — which saw millions stranded without transport, documentation or entitlements — exposed the absence of a national registry, weak inter-state coordination, and no crisis-time grievance redressal mechanisms for inclusion and welfare delivery.
Five years later, these structural cracks remain. The e-Shram portal, with over 31 crore registrations, is a visionary step to map workers and bridge data gaps, but registration alone will not necessarily translate into portable benefits, insurance, accident compensation and entitlements delivery. Worker databases are still not fully linked to employer records or applicable to all social protection schemes.
Meanwhile, high-density economic clusters — construction, hospitality, logistics, fisheries, food processing, industrial manufacturing and domestic work — run on migrant labour, mostly from vulnerable and marginal communities from high-outmigration states. These workers face the highest risk of hazardous conditions, exploitative recruitment, wage theft and exclusion from safety nets. Multi-layered subcontracting further erodes accountability.
Yet meaningful governance and policy examples exist. Kerala’s migrant-inclusive local government model treats migrant workers as residents, integrating them into health services, community centres and housing schemes. Jharkhand’s Safe and Responsible Migration Initiative (SRMI) piloted inter-state frameworks, help desks, counselling, state- and district-level registration and necessary financial support for workers and their families facing distress or accidental deaths. Odisha operates community-based registration and tracking for out-migrants, while West Bengal is building unified migrant registries through the State Migrant Workers Welfare Board at district levels.
India urgently needs a national-state compact on migration — a formal, federal and institutional mechanism linking high-source and high-destination states and the Centre through shared data, contractor regulation, accident reporting and portable welfare. Local governments must be empowered to inspect living conditions, track settlements and provide documentation.
The workers who died in Goa were contributors to India’s growth story. Their lives must matter. Until migrant workers are seen not as numbers but as central to India’s economic and social future, the vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047 will remain incomplete.
Banerjee is co-founder and partner at Policy and Development Advisory Group, New Delhi
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