Understanding Federalism and Internal Migration in India
India's Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to move freely throughout the territory and to reside and settle in any part of the country under Articles 19(1)(d) and 19(1)(e). These are not minor provisions — they are fundamental rights that establish India as a single internal market for labour, treating state boundaries not as barriers to movement but as administrative divisions within a unitary citizenship.
The census of 2001 counted migrants — people who had changed their place of residence — at approximately 30% of India's population; more recent estimates suggest 400–600 million internal migrants of various categories, including lifetime migrants (those born in a different state or district from where they currently live), circular migrants (who oscillate between home and destination), and seasonal migrants (who move for specific work seasons). This is among the largest human mobility systems in any country.
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| Representational Image: Understanding Federalism and Internal Migration in India |
The receiving states — typically richer states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi — are the primary employers of migrant labour; the sending states — primarily Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Jharkhand — are primarily responsible for the welfare of workers who have left their borders but remain their citizens.
This
cross-state welfare responsibility gap is not theoretically resolved by the
Constitution and practically produces a situation where millions of migrant
workers fall through the federal cracks: too far from their source state to
access its welfare systems, and not eligible for destination-state welfare
systems that privilege local residents.
What You Need to Know
- Articles
19(1)(d) and 19(1)(e) guarantee all Indian citizens the right to move
freely throughout the territory and to reside and settle in any part of
it; Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of place of birth;
Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment; these
constitutional provisions establish the legal framework for barrier-free
internal migration.
- CEPR
research cited a 2001 figure showing internal migrants at 30% of India's
population, but noted this is "deceptively large" —
short-distance migration greatly exceeds interstate migration; Census data
and National Sample Survey data consistently show that truly interstate
migration (crossing state boundaries) is lower than comparable countries,
with some research attributing this to social network constraints and
federal governance fragmentation.
- The
COVID-19 lockdown (March 2020) precipitated the largest peacetime internal
migration crisis in India's history: an estimated 10–12 crore migrants
attempted to return home from cities to their villages in the weeks
following the lockdown announcement; the crisis exposed that destination
states had no systematic record of the migrant workers in their territory,
no welfare mechanism to reach them, and no coordination system with source
states.
- SAGEJ
(Sage Journals) research on internal migration governance (2024)
identified that despite the constitutional guarantee of freedom of
movement, "interstate migrants were treated differently by source and
destination states" — source states treated them as citizens,
destination states as workers with few rights and services; this welfare
gap is a structural federal governance failure, not a local administrative
failure.
- Centre
for Policy Research's Working Paper proposed an Inter-State Migration
Council as a cooperative federal institution to address migration
governance — coordinating social security portability, data collection,
and benefit access across state lines; as of 2025, no such institution
exists; the Labour Codes (2019–2020) expanded some social security
provisions to migrant workers but have been criticised for excluding
intra-state migrants.
How It Works in Practice
1. The structural mobility: India's labour market
relies on massive inter-state labour flows to function. Construction sites in
Mumbai run on Bihari and UP migrant labour; textile mills in Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka employ migrant workers from Odisha and Chhattisgarh; domestic work in
Delhi and Bengaluru is performed substantially by women from Jharkhand and West
Bengal. This mobility is driven by wage differentials, employment availability,
and the structure of India's economic geography — some states generate jobs;
others generate workers.
2. The social protection gap: India's major social
protection programmes — the Public Distribution System, MGNREGA, state welfare
schemes, subsidised health, housing programmes — are typically residence-based,
not citizenship-based. A Bihar migrant worker in Mumbai is entitled to MGNREGA
work in his Bihar village, but not in Maharashtra; his Bihar ration card may
not be functional in Maharashtra; state health schemes in Maharashtra may not
cover him; he is a constitutional citizen everywhere but a welfare-state member
only where he is registered. The "One Nation One Ration Card" (ONORC)
scheme, implemented from 2021, is the most significant attempt to address this
gap — allowing PDS ration access across states with Aadhaar linking.
3. The receiving state's lack of incentive:
Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu benefit economically from migrant labour —
these workers pay taxes, build infrastructure, and work in domestic and care
sectors that local workers often avoid. But they are a political constituency
for their source states' governments, not for the receiving state's government;
they may not vote in destination state elections; their welfare conditions are
not a political priority for the destination state government. This political
economy produces systematic neglect of migrant worker welfare in receiving
states.
4. The COVID-19 exposure: The lockdown of March 2020
was the most dramatic demonstration of India's migrant governance failure.
Migrant workers with no social protection in destination states, no income as
businesses closed, and no assured return to source states began walking hundreds
of kilometres home. The human cost — deaths on highways, starvation, illness —
was enormous and nationally visible. The crisis demonstrated that India's
federal social protection system has no coordinated inter-state welfare mechanism
for migrants in crisis.
5. Policy responses and their limits: The Inter-State
Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 — which required employers of interstate migrants to
register and provide minimum conditions — was largely unenforced for decades.
The Labour Codes (2019–2020) incorporated some migrant worker protections into
the broader labour code framework, but have been criticised for narrowing the
definition of "interstate migrant worker" to exclude intrastate
migrants and those on self-employment contracts. ONORC addresses ration
portability; social security portability — ESIC health coverage, EPF provident
fund — remains complex for migrant workers in the informal sector.
What People Often Misunderstand
- The
constitutional right to move is not the same as the practical ease of
moving: Articles 19(1)(d) and 19(1)(e) protect the legal right to
move; they do not compel destination states to provide welfare services,
do not require social security portability, and do not create enforcement
mechanisms for migrant worker rights in destination states.
- India's
internal migration rate is lower than comparably sized countries:
Despite the massive absolute numbers, India's rate of interstate migration
(as a proportion of population) is lower than the US, Brazil, or China;
CEPR research identifies federal governance fragmentation and social
network constraints as explanatory factors — moving is a right, but the
welfare gaps make it costlier than it needs to be.
- The
"nativist politics" problem is a federal governance expression:
Shiv Sena's "Maharashtra for Maharashtrians" politics;
Karnataka's periodic restrictions on language in businesses; Tamil Nadu's
preference for Tamil speakers in certain employment — these are
politically organised expressions of destination-state resistance to
migrant inflows that have constitutional limits (Article 15 prohibits
place-of-birth discrimination) but real political salience.
- ONORC
is a genuine federal innovation, not a complete solution: One Nation
One Ration Card has substantially improved PDS portability for migrants;
its reach is limited to PDS (food grains) and does not address health,
housing, or other welfare dimensions; and its implementation requires
Aadhaar linkage that some marginalised groups have difficulty maintaining.
- Labour
Code implementation is incomplete: The four Labour Codes consolidating
29 central labour laws were enacted in 2019–2020 but not implemented;
central government notification of implementation rules took until 2023
and states must still enact their own rules; as of May 2026,
implementation is partial and varied across states.
What Changes Over Time
ONORC — extended to all states and union territories by 2021 — is the most significant recent federal innovation in migration governance. The Labour Codes, when fully implemented, will consolidate migrant worker rights across a simpler legal framework.
CPI Research's proposal for an Inter-State Migration Council modelled on federal cooperation frameworks in other countries has influenced the 16th Finance Commission's recommendation to reactivate the Inter-State Council for real-time federal coordination — though migration-specific inter-state institutions have not been created.
India's
2024–2025 Economic Survey chapters on demographic dividend and internal
migration have elevated the issue's policy profile at the central government
level.
Sources and Further Reading
- CPRINDIA
— Towards an Inter-State Migration Council: https://cprindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/WP_Chinmay-Tumbe.pdf
- CEPR
— How India's internal borders inhibit migration: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-indias-internal-borders-inhibit-migration
- Sage
Journals — Tracing Internal Migration Governance in India: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/24557471241234973
- Indian
Federalism and Regional Economic Inequality — ISPP: https://www.ispp.org.in/indian-federalism-addressing-regional-and-economic-inequalities/
- PRS
Legislative Research — Labour Codes: https://prsindia.org