Labourers work at the site of a commercial building under construction in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi. India’s biggest cities face a worsening shortage of migrant manual labourers. While India has long suffered a dearth of workers with vocational skills like plumbers and electricians, efforts to alleviate poverty in poor, rural areas have helped stifle what was once a flood of cheap, unskilled labour from poorest states.
