Impact of COVID-19 on Indian Migrant Workers and the Informal Sector
The Indian and the international media presented the Indian migrant workforce's troubles during the COVID-19 crisis. The unprecedented circumstances opened a Pandora's box of years of neglect and sidelining of the welfare and wellness of the migrant workers of the informal sector. The literature was sourced from the workforce migration literature of India, newspapers, government and private agency reports, population census of 2011, and research papers published during the period. This exploratory research has the objective to explore the informal sector's background and the migrant workers of India before the pandemic to understand the immediate short-term implications and the long-term impact of the pandemic across all sections of the informal workers. Finally, the research concludes with a discussion on the policy imperatives deemed to have a beneficial effect on the migrant workers in future years, once the COVID-19 crisis is over.