Internal Migration is a demographic concept that refers to the movement of people from one place to another within the political boundaries of a single country, such as India. The movement is broadly categorized into four directional streams: rural-to-rural (R-R), rural-to-urban (R-U), urban-to-urban (U-U), and urban-to-rural (U-R). As per the 2011 Census, the total number of internal migrants in India was approximately 453.6 million, representing nearly 37% of the total population. The largest stream is rural-to-rural migration, which is often driven by socio-cultural factors like marriage, while rural-to-urban migration is primarily motivated by the search for better employment and economic opportunities.
The need to regulate the conditions of a specific group, the inter-state migrant workers, led to the enactment of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979. This Act was created to address the exploitation of workers, particularly the "dadan labour" system prevalent in states like Orissa, where contractors (Sardars/Khatedars) would recruit workers for employment outside their native state. Key provisions of the 1979 Act mandated that inter-state migrant workmen be paid no less than the wages fixed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and were entitled to a displacement allowance (Section 14) and a journey allowance (Section 15).
The 1979 Act has recently been replaced by the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. Furthermore, the welfare of migrant workers is now connected to the Code on Social Security, 2020, which consolidates nine central labour laws. The Code on Social Security, 2020 extends social security benefits to inter-state migrant workers, categorizing them as either contract labour or unorganized workers, and mandates the establishment of toll-free call centers and helplines under Section 112 for their facilitation.