More than one crore migrant workers returned to their native places during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, labour and employment minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said on Wednesday. Responding to a question by Tiruchi Shiva in Rajya Sabha, the minister said, “During nation-wide lockdown amidst Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, more than 1.14 crore Inter-state migrant workers returned to their home-states… Most of the migrant workers have now returned to their workplace and engaged in gainful employment.” However, the individual tally provided by the 36 states and Union Territories did not add up to the 1.14 crore number cited by the minister. Instead, the sum was 1.23 crore. In another question asked by senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, who wanted to know how many labourers in the unorganised sector lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic following the closure of factories, he said there are 10 crore labourers in the organised sector and 40 crore in the unorganised sector.
— source thewire.in | 10/Feb/2021