A person who migrates or who has migrated from one country to another with a view to being employed other than on his own account.India is a vast country with high percentage of uneducated, unemployed and unskilled labour suffering from acute poverty.Regional imbalances add to their problem.Many of them are unable to find means of livelihood within their habitat.
Frequent droughts,famines and other calamities force these poorest sections to migrate.These sections of people are constantly on the move seeking avenues of manual work.Such migrants are mostly employed by contractors in road works,quarry and brick works,mining works, clearing forests and in many hazardous works.A few of them become domestic help,and some become menials in hotels and other establishments.As migrant Labour,there is no protection to their person,no guarantee of a fair wage.They are forced to live in unhygienic transit slums without clean water and nutritious food.There is no guarantee for health care and no provision for care and education of their children.
Migrant labour,means,the labour who goes on moving from place to place seeking manual employment on temporary basis.They are constantly exploited by contractors.As they work in regions of different languages it becomes very difficult to become organised and to articulate on their needs and to demand and secure necessary remedies.In fact,most of the migrant labour are treated almost like bonded labour.
Wider highways,huge buildings for industries, business and institutions are coming up fast, however the conditions of the human labour involved in the expanding economy cannot be ignored.More than half of the labour involved in these developmental activities are migrant labour.
