When the Covid-19 lockdowns stopped migrant workers in their tracks, with little money, work or means to go back home, governments of destination states struggled to figure out how many migrants they had, in order to provide free foodgrain, support and medical help.
India’s migrant workers are an amorphous group, scattered across several states, moving for a variety of push and pull factors. To understand the profile of the average migrant, researchers from Azim Premji University looked at different government databases, and found some interesting trends.
