Home Insights Kerala Migrant Worker Welfare Model – Awaaz And Apna Ghar: Kerala’s Welfare...

Kerala Migrant Worker Welfare Model – Awaaz And Apna Ghar: Kerala’s Welfare Architecture For Migrant Workers

By
IMPRI
-
0
0
PU posting 2.0 9

Policy Update
Mahenoor Imam

Background

Kerala’s migrant worker welfare policies emerged from major changes in the state’s labour market. Large numbers of Keralites migrated abroad, particularly to Gulf countries, while education and changing employment preferences reduced the availability of local workers for labour-intensive jobs. Workers from other states gradually filled this gap, particularly in construction, manufacturing, hotels, agriculture and other informal sectors. The Kerala State Planning Board recognised interstate migrant workers as an important part of the state’s workforce and highlighted the need to include them within the welfare system.

The growing presence of migrant workers also raised concerns about their living and working conditions. A 2013 study by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT), conducted for the Labour Department, estimated around 25 lakh domestic migrant workers in Kerala at that time. The study also identified West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Uttar Pradesh among the major source states. However, this was a 2013 estimate and should not be treated as the current migrant population. Issues such as inadequate housing, sanitation, healthcare and limited access to welfare schemes highlighted the need for targeted government intervention.

Kerala’s wider tradition of labour welfare provided the institutional foundation for such intervention. The Economic Review 2016 noted that the state had around 29 welfare boards covering different categories of workers and followed the principle that workers should have access to welfare and social-security protection. Against this background, Kerala introduced the Migrant Workers Welfare Scheme in 2010 to provide welfare support to interstate migrant workers. The scheme marked an important step towards bringing migrant workers into the state’s formal welfare framework.

The welfare system was gradually expanded through specialised programmes. Each programme answered a limit in the one before it. The 2010 scheme brought migrant workers inside Kerala’s welfare architecture, but its ₹30 contribution and reliance on employers held registration to about 53,000 by 2016. Awaz made cover free and tied it to a biometric card, producing both an entitlement and the state’s first migrant database. Apna Ghar took on housing, which insurance could not reach. Athidhi absorbed the registration Awaz had failed to scale.  

YearInitiativeWhat it added, and what it built on
2010Migrant Workers Welfare SchemeIndia’s first dedicated welfare fund for migrant workers, administered by the BOCW Board. Contributory at ₹30 a year. Registration stayed low — about 53,000 workers by 2016.
2016Legislative Assembly debateConcern over migrant living conditions and the thin coverage of the 2010 scheme led to approval of a dedicated health insurance scheme.
2017–18AwazReplaced the contributory model with fully free cover, removing the cost barrier. Enrolment opened on 1 June 2018. The biometric drive doubled as the state’s first migrant worker database.
2019Apna Ghar — KanjikodeExtended welfare to housing, which insurance could not address. 620 beds, operational from March 2019.
2022Apna Ghar — Kinalur and KalamasseryAttempted to scale housing. Kinalur opened with 100 of 520 planned beds in October 2022 Bhavanam Foundation Kerala, the Kalamassery foundation stone was laid in April 2022.
2023Athidhi portalResponded to stalled Awaz enrolment and persistent data gaps by moving registration online and allowing self-registration. Became the single entry point, with Athidhi registration now enrolling a worker in Awaz automatically.Awaz treatment cover stood at ₹25,000 by this point (Onmanorama, 2023; Kerala Calling, 2025), raised from the ₹15,000 announced at launch (The News Minute, 2022). 
2025JyothiExtended welfare from the worker to the family, covering the schooling of migrant workers’ children.

These initiatives show a gradual shift from a limited welfare approach towards a broader system covering registration, healthcare, housing, education and social security. The Kerala model therefore reflects an attempt to respond to both the vulnerabilities of migrant workers and their growing importance to the state’s economy.

Functioning

Awaz is run jointly by three bodies. According to Ditto (2025), the Labour Department registers workers and issues the cards, the Health Department delivers treatment through listed hospitals, and the Kerala Institute of Labour and Employment (KILE) carries out research. Workers pay nothing to join, and the state government bears the full cost. When the scheme started in 2018, it covered treatment up to ₹15,000 a year and paid ₹2 lakh for an accidental death (NewsClick, 2018). Kerala Calling (2025) reports that the medical cover is now ₹25,000, with ₹1 lakh for disability and maternity care included. Shramik Bandhu Facilitation Centres in every district help workers register, with staff who speak their languages.

Apna Ghar runs through a different route. It is carried out by Bhavanam Foundation Kerala (BFK), a non-profit company owned by the state. As YourStory (2019) and The News Minute (2017) explain, BFK owns and manages the hostels, COSTFORD guided the construction, and KITCO supervised the work. The Labour Department sets the policy and BFK delivers it.

Since 2023, registration has moved online to the Athidhi portal and app. According to the National Informatics Centre (2025), which built it, workers, employers and contractors can register themselves with a mobile OTP. An officer then checks the details and gives each worker a unique ID that links them to state welfare schemes. A Government Order from the Labour Commissionerate now routes Awaz benefits through Athidhi, which makes the portal the single entry point. In practice, a worker who registers on Athidhi is enrolled in Awaz automatically.

Apna Ghar needs a lot of capital up front. The first hostel at Kanjikode cost the government ₹8.5 crore (The News Minute, 2017). Rent of ₹750 to ₹1,000 a month is meant to cover running costs, not the cost of the building. Land is also expensive, even when it belongs to another state agency. BFK paid ₹2.5 crore for one acre at Kalamassery (BFK), and a Kerala High Court record shows the Kinalur plot was leased for ₹67.20 lakh. So one part of the government is paying another, which raises costs and slows projects down.

Awaz is fully free, which is a change from the earlier model. Under the 2010 Migrant Workers’ Welfare Scheme (IISTE), workers paid ₹30 a year and the Board and the state added to it. Awaz removed the worker’s share. This lowered the barrier to joining, but it also made the scheme fully dependent on the state budget.

Both schemes are working, but at a limited scale. Awaz and Athidhi are running across the state through district facilitation centres and the online portal. Apna Ghar has one full hostel at Kanjikode and a part-built one at Kinalur. A third, at Kalamassery, has been under development since its foundation stone was laid in April 2022 (ANI, 2022). Kerala Calling (2025) describes the hostels as having shared rooms, kitchens, CCTV, sewage treatment and generator backup. A fourth test whether the schemes improve health or housing security relative to non-beneficiaries cannot be applied, because no such evaluation has been published. 

Performance

Awaz enrolled workers quickly at first. NewsClick (2018) reported nearly two lakh registrations in the first three months. Growth then stopped, and Labour Commissionerate data quoted by The News Minute (2022) shows about 5.16 lakh active cards. That figure is a count of cards issued, while the State Planning Board’s 31 lakh is a survey-based estimate from 2021, and other studies put the migrant population between 25 and 35 lakh.

The two are not measured the same way, so comparing them gives a rough sense of coverage rather than an exact rate. On these numbers, roughly one worker in six held a card. The Athidhi portal was launched in 2023 to close the gap. It crossed 25,000 registrations within weeks (Kerala Kaumudi, 2023) and reached 3.72 lakh by 2025 (The South First, 2025), about a tenth of the estimated workforce on the same loose basis. 

The bigger problem is that workers with cards are not using them. Labour Commissionerate data for 2018 to 2022, reported by The News Minute (2022), shows that only 374 workers received medical benefits, worth ₹24.18 lakh. Another 30 families received accident-death claims, worth ₹58.5 lakh. Fewer than one in a thousand cardholders got anything. Workers told The News Minute they thought the card was only an ID needed to work in Kerala. Officials blamed low awareness, language barriers and the exodus during COVID-19. A Mahatma Gandhi University study (The New Indian Express, 2025) found that only 9.8 per cent of migrant workers had any health cover.

There are a few likely reasons. Many workers never knew what the card was for. Labour officers had registration targets to meet, so workers queued, gave their fingerprints and took the card, but no one explained that it paid for hospital treatment, and most of the information was in Malayalam or English rather than Hindi, Bengali, Odia or Assamese (The CDPP, 2024).

The card is also worth less than it sounds, because it mainly covers treatment at government hospitals, where everyone already pays very little. Most migrant workers are young and rarely need hospital care, and those who fall seriously ill often go home to their families for treatment. How much each reason matters is not known, because the Labour Department has never published a study of who actually claims. 

Figure 1- From workforce to welfare- how many workers Awaz actually reaches

Source- The South First (2025), cited by author

Apna Ghar works where it has been built, but very little has been built. According to Bhavanam Foundation Kerala (BFK), only the Kanjikode hostel in Palakkad is complete, with 620 beds. It has been running since March 2019 at a rent of about ₹800 a month (NewsClick, 2018). Kinalur in Kozhikode was planned for 520 beds, but only 100 have been working since October 2022. Kalamassery’s foundation stone was laid in April 2022 (ANI, 2022), and BFK still lists it as a new project. In 2018, officials promised three hostels of about 1,000 beds each. Today about 720 beds are working out of roughly 3,100 planned. 

Figure 2- Apna Ghar- about 720 beds working against- 3100 planned

image 3

Source- BFK Project Page, cited by author

CAG Report No. 7 of 2024 is the strongest official evidence. It covers 2018–19 to 2022–23. It found that the Migrant Workers’ Welfare Fund received a ₹10 crore corpus in 2010 and nothing after that. Only ₹1.69 crore was spent on worker welfare in five years, and the fund’s accounts had not been prepared after 2018–19. The CAG said this showed “low priority” for migrant welfare.

The parent Construction Workers’ Welfare Board was also in trouble. Its cash fell from ₹910 crore to ₹135 crore in four years, and it had to borrow from other welfare boards to pay pensions. Labour officers in the test-checked districts carried out only 284 of 1,500 required inspections. At two Kozhikode sites where migrant workers had been killed or injured, safety violations were still present two years later. 

Screenshot 2026 10 04 101339

Impact

  1. Kerala had a migrant welfare scheme before 2017, but it reached very few people. The 2010 scheme had been on the books for seven years and had registered only about 53,000 workers by 2016 (Roy, 2022). Awaz, Apna Ghar and Athidhi changed that. For the first time, the state treated migrant workers as people entitled to health care, housing and an official ID. Peter et al. (2020) say Kerala went further than any other state in including migrant workers. Policy Circle (2024) notes that Kerala was ranked the most migrant-friendly state in 2019.
  2. Apna Ghar caught attention outside Kerala. The Deccan Chronicle (2019) reported that officials from Delhi and Karnataka visited the Kanjikode hostel and planned to copy it. A Parliamentary Standing Committee (2021) later asked for migrant housing and a migrant worker database across India. 
  3. The schemes did little for most workers. The News Minute found that only 374 of about 5 lakh Awaz cardholders got medical help in four years. Many workers thought the card was just an ID. The CDPP study (2024) found that most workers did not know about the schemes, partly because information was given in Malayalam or English. Apna Ghar houses fewer than 1,000 men, while Kerala has around 30 lakh migrant workers.
  4. The schemes give benefits but do not fix how workers are hired and treated. The CAG (2024) found that labour officers skipped most required site inspections. People’s Democracy (2025) takes a more positive view, but the evidence suggests that welfare alone is not enough without better protection at work.

Emerging Issues

  1. Most migrant workers are still outside the schemes. In 2016, only 53,000 workers were registered under the old welfare scheme (OpenEdition). Awaz now has about 5 lakh cardholders, but the Deccan Herald estimates Kerala has 31.4 lakh migrant workers. Many cardholders do not know what the card is for. The News Minute found that workers saw it as an ID needed for work, not as health insurance. Information given mostly in Malayalam or English makes the gap worse.
  2. Kerala still does not know how many migrant workers it has. Onmanorama (2023) reported that the Labour Department’s numbers were far below the real count, because many workers skipped registration. ThePrint (2023) noted that Athidhi was launched soon after crimes involving migrants, so it was presented partly as a safety measure. 
  3. The CAG (2024) found that the old Migrant Workers’ Welfare Fund received no new money after 2010, spent only ₹1.69 crore in five years, and had no accounts after 2018–19. The Construction Workers’ Welfare Board that manages it was running out of cash and filing its reports years later. Awaz is fully paid for by the state, but the government publishes almost no claims or spending data. Without regular public reports, it is hard to tell whether the schemes are working.
  4. Apna Ghar has about 720 working beds for around 30 lakh workers, and new hostels have taken years to build. There is also a design concern. CMID, a migration research group, has warned that hostels built only for migrant workers inside industrial parks can cut them off from the people around them (Gulf News). No one has studied whether this has happened in Kerala, and the hostels are still far too small for it to show. But the worry grows if more are built. 
  5. Kerala calls migrant workers “guest workers.” The word makes them sound like short-term visitors, but many have lived in Kerala for 18 to 20 years (Fair Observer). Because of this label, they miss out on long-term support like housing help or local benefits.
  6. The future of the schemes is also unclear. A new UDF government came to power in May 2026, and Bindhu Krishna is now the Labour Minister. All three schemes, Awaz, Apna Ghar and Athidhi, were started by the previous government. It is not yet known whether the new government will keep them, change them or rename them.

Way Forward

  1. Awaz will only work if workers know how to use it. The state should run awareness drives in Hindi, Bengali, Odia and Assamese at work sites, labour camps and railway stations. Each card should come with a simple list of nearby hospitals that accept it. Hospitals should also be told to accept the card directly. The CDPP study (2024) says language is the biggest barrier, so information has to reach workers in the languages they speak.
  2. Athidhi should be linked with the national e-Shram portal, which had over 31 crore unorganised workers registered by December 2025. A worker who leaves Kerala now loses the Awaz entitlement and starts from zero in the next state. Linking the two would give each worker one identity, so arrivals could be recognised from an existing record rather than registered afresh, and their claim history would travel with them. It would also let the Labour Department drop workers who have left from its own count. One Nation One Ration Card already works this way for food grains. But e-Shram only registers workers and carries no benefit, so portable cover would still need agreement between states, as the Standing Committee on Labour (2021) recommended. 
  3. The CAG (2024) asked the government to put the welfare board’s finances in order and to bring its accounts up to date. The state should do the same for its migrant schemes. The old Migrant Workers’ Welfare Fund should either be revived with fresh money or merged into Awaz. The Labour Department should also publish yearly figures on Awaz enrollment, claims and spending, so the public can see whether the schemes are working.
  4. Apna Ghar needs to move faster. The Kalamassery hostel should be finished, and Kinalur should be completed to its full 520 beds. Building large hostels takes years, so the state can also work with employers and private landlords through rental support. Mixing workers into ordinary neighbourhoods would also help avoid separate migrant areas. 
  5. Welfare schemes cannot make up for weak protection at work. Labour officers must carry out the required site inspections and act on safety violations, as the CAG recommended. Kerala has asked for migrant workers to be named clearly in the national OSH Code, and it should keep pushing for this. 
  6. Workers who have lived in Kerala for many years should be treated as residents, not “guests.” The new government should also say clearly whether it will keep these schemes, so that the progress made so far is not lost.

References

  1. Bhavanam Foundation Kerala. (n.d.). Apna Ghar projects. Government of Kerala. https://bfk.kerala.gov.in/apna-ghar-projects/
  2. Bhavanam Foundation Kerala. (n.d.). Bhavanam Foundation Kerala – A Government of Kerala undertaking. https://bfk.kerala.gov.in/
  3. Department of Labour and Skills, Government of Kerala. (n.d.). Athidhi portal for registration of guest workers. Labour Commissionerate. https://athidhi.lc.kerala.gov.in/
  4. Kerala Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. (n.d.). Profile. Government of Kerala. https://kbocwwboard.kerala.gov.in/kboc/public/view/Profile
  5. Labour Commissionerate, Government of Kerala. (n.d.). Government orders: Athidhi portal – Awaz scheme benefit distribution. https://lc.kerala.gov.in/en/government-orders
  6. National Informatics Centre. (2025, July). ATHIDHI Kerala. Informatics, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. https://informatics.nic.in/files/websites/july-2025/athidhi-kerala.php
  7. Comptroller and Auditor General of India. (2024). Report No. 7 of 2024: Performance audit on welfare of building and other construction workers, Government of Kerala. https://cag.gov.in/en/audit-report/details/121798
  8. Comptroller and Auditor General of India. (2024). Chapter V: Functioning of the Kerala Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board [PDF]. https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2024/Chapter-V–Functioning-of-Kerala-Building-and-Other-Construction-Workers’-Welfare-Board-067e2520abad205.36706520.pdf
  9. Government of Kerala. (2026). Budget speech 2026–27. Kerala Legislative Assembly. https://www.niyamasabha.org/codes/15kla/Session_16/Budget%20Speech%202026-27_English.pdf
  10. Kerala State Planning Board. (2016). Economic review 2016: Labour and labour welfare. Government of Kerala. https://spb.kerala.gov.in/economic-review/ER2016/chapter03_07.php
  11. Kerala State Planning Board. (2026). Economic review 2025. Government of Kerala. https://spb.kerala.gov.in/economic-review/ER2025/
  12. Public Relations Department, Government of Kerala. (2025, September). Home for guest labourers. Kerala Calling. https://keralacalling.kerala.gov.in/home-for-guest-labourers/
  13. PRS Legislative Research. (2021). Report summary: Social security and welfare measures for inter-state migrant workers [Standing Committee on Labour, Chair: Bhartruhari Mahtab]. https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/social-security-and-welfare-measures-for-inter-state-migrant-workers
  14. Standing Committee on Labour. (2020). Report on the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2019. Lok Sabha Secretariat. https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2019/SCR-%20Occupational%20Safety,%20Health%20and%20Working%20Conditions%20Code,%202019.pdf
  15. Centre for Development Policy and Practice. (2024). Inclusive welfare policies and inter-state migrant workers in Kerala: An insight for India. https://www.cdpp.co.in/articles/inclusive-welfare-policies-and-inter-state-migrant-workers-in-kerala-an-insight-for-india
  16. Centre for Development Policy and Practice. (2024). Labour migration and welfare schemes: Utilising by the workers – A critical perspective on Kerala. https://www.cdpp.co.in/articles/labour-migration-and-welfare-schemes-utilizing-by-the-workers-a-critical-perspective-on-kerala
  17. Deccan Chronicle. (2019, February 22). Kerala: ‘Apna Ghar’ awaits migrant workers. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/220219/kerala-apna-ghar-awaits-migrant-workers.html
  18. Onmanorama. (2023, May 15). 7.5 lakh migrant workers in Kerala, unofficial estimates suggest. https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2023/05/15/guest-workers-in-kerala-wrong-data-in-labour-department-as-many-skip-registration.html
  19. Press Trust of India. (2023, August 6). Kerala govt to launch ‘Athidhi Portal’ on Monday for registration of migrant workers. ThePrint. https://theprint.in/india/kerala-govt-to-launch-athidhi-portal-on-monday-for-registration-of-migrant-workers/1703087/
  20. Fair Observer. (2026, September). Empowering the lost “guest workers” of Kerala the right way. https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/empowering-the-lost-guest-workers-of-kerala-the-right-way/

About the Contributor

Mahenoor is a postgraduate in Political Science from University of Calcutta, Kolkata. She is a former UPSC Civil Services Aspirant. Her interests lie in governance, social equity and welfare policy, with a focus on the gap between policy design and on-ground implementation. 

Acknowledgement

The author extends sincere gratitude to Pritha Chowdhury and Khushi for their invaluable guidance and support.

Disclaimer

All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organization.

Read More at IMPRI:

Construction & Infrastructure Equipment Manufacturing Initiative (2026)

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) (2004): Residential Schooling for Marginalised Girls and the Class 8 peak

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR