Voices of the Invisible Citizens II: One year of COVID-19 – Are we seeing shifts in internal migration patterns in India?

Migrants Resilience Collaborative, an initiative by the non-governmental organisation Jan Sahas, released this report in June 2021. It follows an initial report – Voices of the Invisible Citizens: A Rapid Assessment on the Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Internal Migrant Workers – released by the organisation in April 2020. The report aims to map shifts in patterns of internal migration in the country during the pandemic. The report also assesses various social security measures undertaken by the government and other organisations to aid migrants during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to compiling data from secondary sources, the report interviewed 2,342 migrants – during the first week of April 2021 – in the ‘source districts’ of Banda, Hazaribagh, Mahbubnagar and Tikamgarh. The ‘destination states’ comprised of Delhi/National Capital Region, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Additional data was drawn from 10 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the Bundelkhand region. This was collected during two periods: between September 2019 and March 2020, and from September 2020 to March 2021...