//14 Oct 2017
Migrant workers are not leaving Kerala because they fear for their safety. They have been departing because November’s demonetisation decision and the Goods and Services Tax, rolled out in July, have reduced the number of jobs on offer, according to fellow workers and trade union leaders.
Media reports early this week suggested that workers from northern and eastern India had received a series of WhatsApp audio messages in Hindi, urging them to leave Kerala to escape from the “locals who kill Hindi-speaking labourers with the support of the state government”. Pictures of the purported victims of such violence had also been circulated. The rumours gained credence after hundreds of migrant labourers were spotted at railway stations across the state. In reality, they were heading home for Diwali.
Kerala has nearly 25 lakh migrant workers, with 2.35 lakh workers coming every year, according to a 2013 study by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, an autonomous body that provides fiscal and social policy inputs to the state government. Nearly 20% of the workers came from West Bengal, 18% from Bihar, 17% from Assam and 15% from Uttar Pradesh.//
https://scroll.in/article/853884/loss-of-jobs-not-fear-for-safety-why-migrant-workers-are-leaving-kerala
//29 Mar 2020
Some are finding their own villages in Bihar blocking their entry; a few had to make trees their temporary homes in West Bengal; hundreds left relief camps and hit the roads in Kerala in protest. And thousands of migrant workers are still walking on highways and railway tracks even at the risk of getting quarantined.
State governments also appealed to the migrant workers to stay put and announced special measures for providing food and other facilities to them, while a few arranged special buses to ferry them to their native places.//
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/migrant-labourers-in-time-of-corona-jobless-homeless-and-miles-to-go-to-return-home/articleshow/74875506.cms
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