Policy Update
Ayana N K
Background
Kerala is home to an estimated 25 to 35 lakh inter-state migrant workers, mainly from West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Nepal (Sreedevi & Gopinath, 2024; Peoples Democracy, 2025). They are an important part of Kerala’s construction, manufacturing, agriculture and service sectors. The state officially refers to them as Athithi Thozhilali, or “guest workers,” reflecting its attempt to promote inclusion. However, migrant-rights researchers note that the term can also suggest that these workers are temporary outsiders who do not fully belong to Kerala (The News Minute, 2021).
Kerala’s growing migrant population has highlighted the need for better communication between migrant workers and local communities. Many workers speak Hindi or other regional languages, while daily life, government offices and welfare services largely operate in Malayalam. This language gap can make it difficult to access healthcare and government services and can contribute to social isolation. Migrant workers are also often called generic names such as ‘Bhai’ or ‘Annan’, or identified by their state of origin, rather than their own names (The News Minute, 2021).
In this context, the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA), which played a key role in Kerala’s Total Literacy Campaign of 1991, introduced Changathi, meaning “friend” in Malayalam. The pilot began in August 2016 in Perumbavoor, Ernakulam, which had a high concentration of migrant workers. It was later rolled out across Kerala on Independence Day, 15 August 2017 (Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority, n.d.; The News Minute, 2023).
Changathi helps migrant workers gain functional literacy in Malayalam while supporting Hindi literacy within around four months. It also seeks to strengthen their connection with local communities and introduces basic awareness of health, hygiene, workers’ rights and constitutional values.
A special learning material, Hamari Malayalam, was developed for the programme. Unlike conventional materials for children, it was designed for working adults, using dialogues and everyday situations involving banks, markets and workplaces. The focus is on practical communication rather than formal grammar (Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority, n.d.). Changathi is therefore more than a language programme; it is an effort to make everyday life in Kerala more accessible and inclusive for migrant workers.
Functioning
Changathi is implemented by the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA), an autonomous body under the General Education Department. The programme works with local self-government institutions, employers and community organisations. Instead of a centralised model, Changathi is organised locally so classes can be easily accessed by migrant workers.
Study centres are arranged in clusters, with around five to ten groups in each centre and fifteen to twenty learners per group. Classes are led by instructors who can communicate in Hindi and Malayalam. Some are qualified migrant workers themselves, while others are students from KSLMA’s equivalency programmes. Classes are held for around five hours a week in schools, libraries, workplaces and worker accommodation. Timings are adjusted according to workers’ shifts, allowing them to attend without losing a day’s wages.
Changathi also goes beyond basic language learning. The Hamari Malayalam curriculum includes personal hygiene, drug-abuse awareness, constitutional values and Kerala’s social and cultural life. Thus, the programme works not only as a literacy initiative but also helps migrant workers understand and participate more comfortably in their surroundings.
After its initial launch in Perumbavoor between 2016 and 2018, Changathi gradually expanded across Kerala. In 2024, it was extended to Sreekaryam ward in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, along with dedicated help desks for migrant workers.
Changathi is part of Kerala’s broader efforts to support migrant workers, but remains administratively separate from other welfare programmes. These include the Inter State Migrant Workers Welfare Scheme and its Aawaz insurance cover introduced in 2010, the Apna Ghar rental housing scheme launched in 2019, the Adhiti worker registration portal introduced in 2023, and education initiatives such as Roshni and Jyothi for migrant children.
Performance
The available official figures show a programme that has grown in scale but remains narrow relative to Kerala’s migrant workforce. In its first phase, a survey across 27 wards of Perumbavoor identified around 400 potential beneficiaries, of whom 1,738 migrant workers went on to complete the Malayalam literacy examination, a completion count well over four times the original target group, suggesting strong demand once outreach and classes were made available.
In the second phase of registration, KSLMA recorded 2,886 enrolments, including 145 women. The participants came from 17 Indian states as well as Nepal. Workers from West Bengal made up the largest group, with 1,390 registrations, followed by Assam with 459, Bihar with 245 and Odisha with 181. Most of the learners, around 1,932, were between 15 and 40 years old.
Figure 1: Changathi Phase 2 Enrolment by State/Country of Origin
Sources: Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority, “Changathi Fame Transcends to Nepal” (2019)
Government data for the period from 2016 to 2020 shows that Changathi helped more than 5,400 migrant workers achieve Malayalam literacy. This was part of a larger literacy effort by KSLMA, which made more than 1.08 lakh people literate across Kerala during the same period, including through programmes aimed at tribal and coastal communities (Press Trust of India, 2020).
However, when set against Kerala’s estimated 25 to 35 lakh migrant workforce (Sreedevi & Gopinath, 2024; Peoples Democracy, 2025), the roughly 5,400 workers reached by Changathi between 2016 and 2020 amount to a small fraction of the estimated migrant population, illustrating how narrow the programme’s reach remains even where it has been implemented.
Another challenge is the lack of recent and consolidated public data: the most recent published enrolment, completion and examination figures located for this review date to 2019 to 2020 (Press Trust of India, 2020), and no more recent year-wise breakdown could be found in publicly available government sources. This makes it difficult to accurately assess how much the programme has expanded and how many migrant workers it currently reaches.
Impact
Where Changathi has been implemented, evidence points to concrete, if modest, gains in participants’ everyday lives. Officials and local reports indicate that graduates have been able to independently handle routine activities, such as shopping, visiting hospitals, using bank counters and dealing with basic legal or administrative matters in Malayalam, that they had previously needed help with (The News Minute, 2023). KSLMA officials have even described Changathi as the state’s “second literacy revolution” after the historic literacy campaign of 1991 (The News Minute, 2023). By improving communication in these specific, day-to-day settings, the programme also aims to reduce the sense of isolation that many migrant workers experience.
At the same time, Changathi has not been able to address the deeper forms of social exclusion faced by migrant workers, since language learning alone cannot change how host communities perceive them. Continuing instances of suspicion and discomfort among sections of the host community towards migrant labour persist even in areas where the programme has operated for several years, suggesting that literacy gains and social attitudes are not moving at the same pace (The News Minute, 2021).
There is a similar gap when it comes to access to welfare schemes. Information about government programmes is still largely provided in Malayalam and English, while Hindi is commonly used as a working language among migrant workers. This language mismatch can make it harder for workers to understand and register for welfare benefits. For example, only around 5 lakh out of an estimated 35 lakh migrant workers have reportedly registered under the main migrant welfare scheme (Peoples Democracy, 2025). While this registration gap has multiple causes beyond language, including awareness, documentation requirements and portal accessibility, it does suggest that Changathi’s language gains have not yet been systematically connected with wider welfare access on a large scale.
Emerging Issues
Kerala’s Changathi programme faces two closely related structural challenges: scale and evidence. Changathi has reached thousands of migrant workers since 2016, but Kerala’s migrant workforce is measured in millions, meaning the overwhelming majority of workers remain outside the programme entirely (see Figure 2). This scale mismatch is compounded by a lack of recent public data: the absence of a consolidated, regularly updated dashboard on enrolment, completion and outcomes makes it difficult for researchers, policymakers or the public to measure the programme’s current reach or effectiveness with confidence.
The problem is sharpened by the programme’s geographic concentration, since Changathi has largely been rolled out in areas with historically high migrant populations, such as Perumbavoor and, more recently, Sreekaryam, so workers in smaller towns, in agriculture and in informal workplaces spread across the state remain largely unreached, even though these settings often have weaker access to information and services to begin with.
Figure 2: Welfare Scheme Registration vs. Estimated Migrant Workforce in Kerala
Source: Peoples Democracy (2025), citing Kerala Economic Review 2024; Deccan Herald (2025)
A second set of challenges concerns coordination and social attitudes rather than scale. Changathi operates administratively separately from Kerala’s other migrant welfare schemes, including Aawaz, Apna Ghar and Adhiti, with limited formal coordination between language training and welfare access.
This means a worker who completes Changathi is not automatically connected to the welfare benefits they may be entitled to, or vice versa. Language training also cannot, by itself, resolve the deeper social exclusion migrant workers face: stereotyping, mistrust and discrimination persist independently of a worker’s Malayalam proficiency, and require separate awareness and enforcement efforts to address. Compounding this, the limited effectiveness of the Adhiti registration portal makes it harder to even identify which workers exist and where, let alone connect them with the language and welfare services that Changathi and other schemes are meant to provide.
Way Forward
Connect data systems: Changathi should be linked with Adhiti and other migrant welfare databases so that the government can better identify workers, track participation and evaluate the programme’s long-term impact.
Work with employers: Construction, manufacturing, plantation and other employers should be encouraged to organise Changathi classes at worksites or nearby worker accommodations, making participation easier for workers who may otherwise struggle to attend.
Use multiple languages: Essential information about welfare schemes, workplace safety, healthcare and legal rights should be provided in Hindi, Bengali, Odia and other widely spoken languages alongside Malayalam, so that language does not become a barrier to accessing public services.
Publish yearly data: The KSLMA and Labour Department should publish updated annual data on enrolment, completion and outcomes, disaggregated by district, gender, age and state of origin. This would make it easier to assess whether Changathi is actually reaching the wider migrant population.
Involve local communities: Awareness programmes should be organised for employers and local communities to address stereotypes and discrimination against migrant workers and to ensure that language learning is accompanied by greater social acceptance.
Connect adult and child programmes: Changathi should be better connected with programmes such as Jyothi and Roshni, allowing migrant families to access more coordinated language and educational support rather than treating adult and child education as separate interventions
References
- Deccan Herald. (2025). Kerala government launches ‘Jyothi’ to ensure education for children of migrant workers. deccanherald.com
- Government of Kerala Notice Board. (2024). Changathi project: Migrant workers help desk launched. noticeboard.kerala.gov.in
- Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority. (2019). Changathi fame transcends to Nepal. literacymissionkerala.org
- Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority. (n.d.). Literacy programme for migrant labourers (Changathi). Retrieved August 29, 2026, from literacymissionkerala.org
- Peoples Democracy. (2025, October 5). From migrants to guests: The Kerala experience. peoplesdemocracy.in
- Policy Circle. (2024). Building bridges: Kerala must redraw its migrant worker policies. policycircle.org
- Press Trust of India. (2020, February 19). Over 1 lakh people achieve literacy in Kerala in four years. The Tribune. tribuneindia.com
- Sreedevi, R. S., & Gopinath, P. (2024). Wages, inequality and work standards in construction sector: A case study of inter-state migrant workers and native workers in Kerala. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 70(1). doi.org/10.1177/00195561231204934
- The News Minute. (2021, April 15). Migrant labourers in Kerala continue to be ostracised, govt schemes futile. thenewsminute.com
- The News Minute. (2023, August 24). Kerala’s second literacy revolution? Govt teaches Malayalam to migrant workers. thenewsminute.com
About the Contributor
Ayana N K is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calicut. With a keen interest in public policy, international relations, and development studies.
Reviewed by Kavin Adithya C.B and Sandra Menon.
Acknowledgements: The author extends her sincere gratitude to the IMPRI team for their expert guidance and constructive feedback throughout the process.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organization.
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