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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Health

COVID-battered Indian migrant workers prefer jobs closer to home

A migrant worker carries his son as they return to their village during a nationwide lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus disease in New Delhi in March 2020 [File: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]

Hungry and thirsty, Mohammed Tanveer walked and hitchhiked 1,900 kilometres home after losing his job in the first coronavirus wave in 2020 – and, like many Indian migrants, has promised never to work so far from his family again.

Tanveer is now doing manual work in a marble factory near the capital, New Delhi, 1,000km (621 miles) west of his village in eastern Bihar state. He is much happier.

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