Work‑Related Migration to the Alang Ship‑Breaking Industry from Other Parts of India: An Overview of Health‑Related Issues

Background: India has a ship‑breaking yard at Alang in Gujarat. The workers are prone to being exposed to various hazardous chemicals, including asbestos. These workers are often interstate migrants, and there is a chance of them developing diseases caused by asbestos, manifesting decades after exposure. This includes mesothelioma, which is a malignancy caused by asbestos exposure and can manifest much after the cessation of their employment.

Objective: In the absence of an operational national database of migrants, it is important to understand the source of migrants to trace future disease occurrence, especially after retiring to their home states. This study aims to find the Indian districts from which workers migrate to work at Alang‑Sosiya ship‑breaking yards.

Methods: The current study uses the Right to Information Act, 2005, to find out the districts of residents of migrant workers that came to Alang in 2019 as a representative year.

Findings and conclusion: The data point to districts in three states: Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar, and have important policy consequences and epidemiological importance as these can be used to understand the aetiology of asbestos‑related diseases.