Inter-State Migrant Worker Rights: OSH Code

On 21 November 2025 the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 stopped existing. It was repealed by section 143 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, and the labourer from Katihar working on a Gurugram site is now governed by sections 59 to 65 of that Code instead.

That swap changed who counts as a migrant worker, what money is owed, and who registers you. Some of it is a real gain. Some of it is a loss nobody announced.

The gain is the first row. For more than four decades a man who bought his own ticket from Ganjam to Surat and walked into a mill gate was outside the migrant worker law. He is inside it now. The losses are the displacement allowance and the pass book, and nothing replaced either.

1. Ten or more. Section 59 applies Part II only to an establishment employing ten or more inter-State migrant workers, or which employed that many on any day of the preceding twelve months. That look back matters: a site with fifteen migrants in March is covered in November even if four remain.
2. The wage ceiling. Section 2(zf) defines an inter-State migrant worker as one drawing wages not exceeding ₹18,000 per month, or such higher amount as the Central Government may notify.

• A fare home once a year. Section 61: the employer shall pay every inter-State migrant worker in his establishment, in a year, a lump sum amount of fare for the to and fro journey to his native place from the place of employment. Note the word employer. Under the old law it was the contractor's bill.
• The same treatment as everyone else on site. Section 60(iii) makes it the duty of the contractor or the employer to extend all benefits available to any other worker of that establishment, including under the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948 or the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, and the free medical check up under section 6(1)©. Section 60(i) adds a duty to ensure suitable conditions of work having regard to the fact that you work in a State not your own.
• Both States told if you are hurt. Section 60(ii) requires a fatal accident or serious bodily injury to be reported to the specified authorities of both States and to your next of kin. Quote this when a body comes home and nobody in the home district was informed.
• Your debt dies with the job. Section 65: no suit or proceeding lies for recovery of a debt relating to an inter-State migrant worker after his employment is complete, where it remains an unsettled obligation to the contractor or principal employer, and that debt is deemed extinguished. The advance the sardar keeps mentioning is not recoverable in law once the work ends. If the pressure continues, see our guide to the Release Certificate after a bonded labour rescue.
• A ration option and a cess option. Section 62 obliges the appropriate Government to make schemes giving you the option of drawing your public distribution entitlement in either your native State or the destination State, and giving construction workers portability of building and other construction cess benefits where they work. More on this below.

Section 61 names no figure. It says the fare is payable in the manner taking into account the minimum service for entitlement, the periodicity and the class of travel and such other matters as may be prescribed by the appropriate Government. Sections 62, 63 and 64 hand the same job to the same authority.

So who is your appropriate Government? Section 2(d) splits it. The Centre is the appropriate Government for railways including metro railways, mines, oil fields, major ports, air transport, telecommunications, banking and insurance companies set up by a Central Act, central public sector undertakings, and establishments run by or under the authority of the Central Government. For a factory, a motor transport undertaking, a plantation, a newspaper, a beedi or cigar establishment, and for every establishment not on that central list, it is the State Government where the establishment stands.

Read that again if you are laying tiles in Kochi, stitching in Tiruppur or waiting tables in Pune. Your appropriate Government is Kerala, Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra. That is why the Ministry of Labour and Employment's own Compliance Handbook for employers under the four labour codes carries the subtitle Central Government Sphere and says it primarily covers establishments for which the appropriate Government is the Central Government. It is not a guide to your site.

The honest position is this. The right in section 61 exists and the Code is in force. The rate card that makes it collectable is a State rule, and whether your State has notified one is a fact you can establish in thirty days with an RTI, not a fact to assume. The draft below asks exactly that.

Section 21 is the quiet revolution. Section 21(2) requires the Central and State Governments to maintain a database of inter-State migrant workers in such portal as the Central Government prescribes. Then two provisos:

• An inter-State migrant worker may register himself on that portal on the basis of self-declaration and Aadhaar.
• Workers who migrated from one State to another and are self-employed there may also register.

Self-employed. That covers the man pushing a thela in Delhi and the woman doing domestic work in Bengaluru, neither of whom has an employer to depend on.

Be clear about one thing, because much of what is written online is not. The registration route that works today is eShram, at eshram.gov.in, run by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. eShram is the national database of unorganised workers. It is not confirmed to be the section 21 portal, so do not treat an eShram number as proof of registration under the Code. Register anyway: it is free, needs only Aadhaar and a linked mobile, and is what State departments actually query. Our guide is at how to apply for an e-Shram card. The helpdesk numbers printed on the portal are 14434 and 1800 889 6811, staffed 9 AM to 6 PM daily including Sundays.

On the helpline, be equally clear. Section 63 says the appropriate Government may provide a toll free helpline for inter-State migrant workers. May, not shall. No notified helpline under section 63 could be confirmed, so ask your State Labour Commissioner whether one exists and use the numbers above meanwhile.

Section 62 promises a scheme. The scheme already running is One Nation One Ration Card, under the National Food Security Act, run by the Department of Food and Public Distribution.

You need no new card, transfer letter or local address. Take your existing ration card number to any Fair Price Shop anywhere in the country and authenticate with your fingerprint or Aadhaar on the shop's electronic Point of Sale machine. The department's Mera Ration app, published by the National Informatics Centre, shows your entitlement and finds nearby shops.

Because the shop machine checks your fingerprint against Aadhaar, the card and the Aadhaar behind it have to be in order before you travel. Ask your home State's food and civil supplies office to confirm that in writing. And if a shopkeeper refuses an out of State card, the Department of Food and Public Distribution prints a toll free number, 1967, on its own website.

1. Ask in writing first. A plain letter to the employer, not the contractor, citing sections 59 and 61 and asking for the annual to and fro fare. Keep a stamped copy or send it by registered post.
2. Go to the Inspector-cum-Facilitator. Section 34 creates this officer in place of the old inspector, and this is the enforcement post under the Code. Your State Labour Department will name the one for your district. Put the complaint in writing and keep the acknowledgement.
3. Know the size of the stick. Section 94 is the general penalty where the Code provides no separate one: not less than ₹2 lakh and up to ₹3 lakh, with a further penalty of up to ₹2,000 a day if the contravention continues after conviction. Non-payment of the section 61 fare falls here.
4. Know who imposes it. Under section 111 the appropriate Government appoints an officer not below the rank of Under Secretary to the Government of India, or equivalent in the State Government, to hold an enquiry and impose that penalty. An appeal lies within sixty days, and an unpaid penalty after ninety days draws a fine of ₹25,000 to ₹2 lakh.
5. File the RTI. A penalty is only as real as the machinery behind it.

For unpaid wages as distinct from the fare, follow our guide to a labour department complaint against an employer.

To
The Public Information Officer
Office of the Labour Commissioner
[State], [Capital city]

Subject: Request under section 6(1) of the Right to Information Act, 2005

Please supply the following, for the period 21 November 2025 to the date
of this application:

1. Whether this State Government has notified rules under the
   Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020. If yes,
   a copy of the notification, with the rule prescribing the minimum
   service for entitlement, the periodicity and the class of travel for
   the journey allowance under section 61.
2. Whether any scheme has been made under section 62 of the Code for the
   public distribution system option and for portability of building and
   other construction cess benefits. If yes, a copy.
3. Whether a toll free helpline for inter-State migrant workers has been
   provided under section 63 of the Code, and its number.
4. The name, designation, office address and telephone number of the
   Inspector-cum-Facilitator appointed under section 34 of the Code for
   [district].
5. The name and designation of the officer appointed under section 111 of
   the Code to hold enquiry and impose penalty.
6. The number of establishments in [district] recorded as employing ten
   or more inter-State migrant workers, and the number of complaints
   received about non-payment of journey allowance under section 61, with
   the action taken on each.

If any part of this is held by another public authority, please transfer
it within five days under section 6(3) and inform me. The fee of ₹10 is
enclosed. [If below the poverty line, say so instead and claim exemption
under the proviso to section 7(5).]

Name, address, mobile:
Date and signature:

Send an identical copy to the PIO of the Ministry of Labour and Employment if your workplace is a mine, a major port, a railway or a central public sector undertaking. The AI RTI Drafter will format it, and the Timeline Tracker fixes the date the thirty days under section 7(1) run out.

No reply in time, or one that dodges the question, means a first appeal under section 19(1) within thirty days to the officer senior to the PIO in the same office. The First Appeal Builder drafts it and the PIO Reply Checker tells you whether what you got is actually an answer. The full escalation method is in The RTI Playbook.

• Appointment letter and free health check up under the OSH Code
• Working hours, overtime and spread over under the OSH Code
• How to apply for an e-Shram card
• Labour department complaint against an employer
• Release Certificate after a bonded labour rescue
• RTI for delayed MGNREGA wages
• Employment and labour schemes in India
• AwaazRTI voice

In force. India Code records commencement on 21 November 2025 by Notification S.O. 5321(E) of that date, published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part II, section 3(ii). That is the only commencement note in the Act, so Chapter XI, including sections 59 to 65, came into force with the rest of it.

The Code does not say. Section 61 fixes the right to a lump sum to and fro fare once a year and leaves the minimum service, the periodicity and the class of travel to rules made by the appropriate Government. For a factory, a construction site or a hotel that is your State Government. Ask in writing what it has notified.

Yes, and this is the biggest change. The 1979 Act covered only a person recruited by or through a contractor. Section 2 of the Code now also covers a worker who came on his own from one State and obtained employment in the destination State, or who later changed employer within that State.

No. The Code defines an inter-State migrant worker as one drawing wages not exceeding ₹18,000 a month, or a higher amount notified by the Central Government. Above that, sections 59 to 65 do not apply to you, though the rest of the Code on safety, health, hours and appointment letters still does.

No. Section 14 of the 1979 Act gave half a month's wages or ₹75, whichever was higher, at recruitment. That Act was repealed by section 143 of the Code and the Code contains no displacement allowance. The same is true of the contractor's pass book.

Yes. Under One Nation One Ration Card you draw your National Food Security Act entitlement from any Fair Price Shop anywhere in the country, using your existing card number and fingerprint or Aadhaar authentication on the shop's electronic Point of Sale machine. Finish your Aadhaar e-KYC first. If a shop refuses, the Department of Food and Public Distribution helpline is 1967.

Treat them as separate. Section 21 lets you register yourself on a portal prescribed by the Central Government, on self-declaration and Aadhaar. eShram is the Ministry of Labour and Employment's database of unorganised workers and is the route that works today, but it is not confirmed to be the section 21 register. Register on eShram, and keep asking your State whether a separate register exists.

Section 65 says no suit or proceeding lies for recovery of a debt relating to an inter-State migrant worker after his employment is complete, where it remains an unsettled obligation to the contractor or the principal employer, and that the debt is deemed extinguished. Being physically stopped from leaving is a graver offence, and should go to the police and the District Magistrate at once.