By employing over 60 million people, the construction industry is the 2nd largest employer after agriculture in India. 36.2% of short-term circular migrants work in the construction sector, from which one third of the workforce is women, who are barely visible in any of the major contracting companies’ project sites. The Indian construction work force is very young with around 60% of the labours below 30 years of age. With very poor background and typically from the lower socio-economic strata, they work with no formal employment contract or have support of any other legal means. The organized construction sector always handled the labour at arm’s length, encouraging exploitive practices, and enjoyed the benefits of ineffective implementation of laws. Though many laws on construction labour exist on paper, they barely get implemented. To tackle these obstacles, we aim to create an ‘Organised Labour Market’ to balance fluctuating labour requirements, and to bring dignity to physical labour through economic prosperity.
