A view of under construction high rise apartment in Bengaluru. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Karnataka government’s decision to introduce two laws — the Factories (Karnataka Amendment) Bill 2023, and the Karnataka State Employment of Local Candidates in the Industries, Factories and Other Establishments Bill, 2024 — unsurprisingly found no takers among the contractors and workers of the unorganised sector from Andhra Pradesh, who go to work in Karnataka and elsewhere.
Bengaluru and its surroundings have become a haven for contractors of the construction industry thanks to the real estate boom ushered in by the IT sector. The construction industry in Karnataka depends on migrant workers in Kolar, Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Belgaum, Sivamogga, Bellery, and Hubli, besides the rural sector.
Dependence on Karnataka
About 50,000 migrant workers from the Rayalaseema districts of Chittoor, Anantapur, Sathya Sai, Annamayya, Kadapa, and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh earn their livelihood in Karnataka. The daily-wagers mostly work in construction as masons, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Thousands of workers from the Kadapa and Annamayya districts who are unable to secure unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the Gulf or fear exploitation find their way to Karnataka as migrant labourers. Similarly, thousands of families in the combined Anantapur district depend on Karnataka for their livelihood. Apart from the construction sector, migrant families work in malls, vegetable markets, and sanitation works in private establishments.
The workforce from the northern States, particularly Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha, also have a strong connection with the districts of the Rayalaseema region, which has a long border with Karnataka. They claim that they get the best patronage from contractors based in Rayalaseema, who execute building contracts in Karnataka. Thousands of families from the northern States settled in Tirupati, Madanapalle, Rayachoti, Kadapa, and Kurnool work in both States. Their employers arrange for transport, food, and accommodation for them.
“Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s plans to scuttle the livelihood of non-locals in the State will never materialise. The two Bills are now in abeyance. All this is political drama to garner votes in the name of providing jobs to locals,” says Gunasekhar, a contractor from Puttur of Tirupati district. “The move to increase working hours in factories (in 2023) was also opposed. Bengaluru is now an ocean of migrant workers. Any move to deter people from migrating there for work would lead to a break down of the system.”
A change in view
Janardhan Reddy, another contractor from Tirupati, who keeps a workforce of 180 from the northern States, executes individual housing projects and apartment projects in Bengaluru. “I have been in the construction sector for the last decade. My workforce started with just five. The number swelled over the years. My men execute the works with precision. They don’t demand anything extra. They don’t argue. They are content with six hours of sleep in temporary sheds. They cook for themselves. Most of them don’t drink or smoke. They remain responsible to their families, hundreds of kilometers away,” he says.
Sunkara Sravani, 27, a software engineer from Nellore, who owns a three-bedroom flat in Krishnarajapuram in Bengaluru, says: “I have been observing the lifestyle of the migrant workers for the last three years. My husband is also a sub-contractor. They are extremely skilled and disciplined. The workforce from the north accepts ₹300-500 a day for a whole day of work. Even when supervisors scold them, they just smile. This is an eye-opener to the migrant workers from the south, and also for locals in Karnataka,” she says.
Senior contractors say the workforce from the Hindi-speaking belt is no longer seen as “unreliable,” as was the case earlier. “They are gaining admiration not only across Karnataka, but elsewhere in the south,” says Gangadhar Gowda of Kolar, who supplies steel to clients in Bengaluru and parts of Rayalaseema.
Radhe Shyam, a worker from Tirupati who whitewashes homes, says, “I work for six months a year in Bengaluru and five months in Tirupati. I take a one-month vacation at our native place, Dharbanga (Bihar). We don’t belong to any particular State. There are in crores of people like me. The government should not be playing with our lives.”
