A roof over your head and then some

Sriperumbudur comes alive after 7 pm. Fast food trucks light up, groups of migrant workers stream from the factory gates towards their accommodation or dinner, and the narrow streets fill with the bustle of a city built around manufacturing. After a day’s hard work, you can feel the relief on your face. Among the automobile and electronics factories that make this Tamil Nadu industrial corridor famous are three- and four-story buildings housing male and female paying guests. Many of these buildings were built by local owners to meet the demand of workers who want to live close to their workplaces. Each resident pays a minimum of ₹2,000 per month to share space with at least four other people.

“Earn and learn”

However, Ramesh (name changed), a 23-year-old from Bhopal, doesn’t have to worry much about that. He came to Sriperumbudur a year and a half ago after his elder brother told him about an “earn and learn” program at a multinational manufacturing company. The four-year program starts with a monthly salary of around ₹10,000. About ₹1,000 is deducted for food and transport and another 1,000 goes into a recurring deposit scheme, he said.

Over four years, Ramesh will work in several departments of the company. He expects to be offered a job at the end of the program. His goal is what program staff call “4+2.” That means four years of training, followed by two years of work experience, after which he hopes to leave with a diploma and practice certificate. When Ramesh is in Sriperumbudur, he has one less worry. They don’t have to find accommodation in a city where Hindi is not widely spoken. The company provides him with accommodation.

Karan Chauhan (name changed), 19, joined the same program at the same company about two months ago. His family sent him to Mumbai after personal circumstances forced him to drop out of his diploma course. Like Ramesh, he is among the young migrants who have come to Sriperumbudur for work and training. The industrial corridor offers them work, accommodation and the possibility of a better future.

Well managed services

It is this growing migrant workforce, from young interns to experienced factory workers, that a small group of companies are now trying to serve through professionally managed accommodation and other services.

The accommodation units run by professional operators have bunk beds, a space for playing games, catering, spacious rooms and facilities for yoga. Resident records are kept, adding another layer of organization to the otherwise largely informal housing market around the industrial corridor.

Companies have traditionally used a combination of self-catering, rented rooms and private hostels to house workers in industrial clusters. Now companies like Nia and Manzl are building businesses around the same demand. Nia describes itself as something broader than a housing provider. “We are work infrastructure with a roof, not housing with jobs,” the company said in written responses to The Hindu’s queries. Its model combines managed living with work continuity and daily necessities such as food and groceries and telehealth.

All in One: Hostel Accommodation for Migrant Workers in Oragadam. It provides shared living rooms with bunk beds, an indoor games area, food and yoga facilities. | Photo credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

Wide client base

Nia said it currently operates in four industrial corridors (NCR, Chakan in Pune, Bengaluru and Sriperumbudur) and serves more than 10,000 members. Its client base includes automotive, electronics, manufacturing, logistics and IT services. Manzl, which operates in Tada and Sri City and has identified a location in Oragadam, describes itself as an industrial housing platform. Its operations cover construction, facility management and a digital workforce management platform. It provides accommodation ranging from dormitory accommodation for workshop workers to corporate accommodation for officials.

Both companies say that living conditions can affect whether or not workers stay with an employer.

Nia describes workforce infrastructure as a “strategic lever for retention and exit.” Manzl co-founder Rohit George said demand is being driven by the location of new manufacturing plants and the scale of hiring. He pointed to industrial clusters like Sriperumbudur-Oragadam, Sanand (Gujarat), Chakan (Maharashtra) and Narasapura (Karnataka) where plants are being built, far from established housing markets. He said some clients who used to rent rooms from local landlords, run their own hostels and manage food, cleaning and security independently now want to outsource the entire function to a single provider.

“Today, the client hands over the whole thing to one provider. The building, the services in it and the reporting layer on top,” he said. “The shift is from procuring rooms to outsourcing the function.”

According to Manzlo, the services sought now go beyond accommodation. They include food, housekeeping, security, services, transportation, connectivity and recreation. Its technology platform also provides employers with occupancy and scheduling information, along with check-in, check-out and a multilingual resident assistance service.

Manzl said electronics and semiconductors are seeing the fastest adoption, followed by automotive and components. He expects textiles to also see more accommodation outsourcing given its large factory workforce and historical reliance on in-house dormitories.

The offer for employers is partly built on retention. Nia said its internal cohort-based tracking shows worker retention rising from about 53% to about 70% among professionally managed life members, as measured by 30-day retention. The company also emphasizes that better accommodation does not replace better wages. “Infrastructure complements better wages. It doesn’t compensate for lower wages,” Nia said.

Safe living

The corporate model differs from regular employer accommodation in yet another way. Nia says workers do not automatically lose their accommodation if they leave their employer. The worker can continue to live in the nest and look for another job. Membership may change from an employer-linked arrangement to a direct one until the worker is redeployed. “Losing a job should also not mean losing a home, especially for a migrant worker away from family,” the company said.

Elevar Equity, which invested in Nia, sees the model as part of a wider formalization of the ecosystem around migrant workers.

The firm’s managing partner Jyotsna Krishnan said workers often migrate to industrial centers with specific savings goals in mind. Poor housing, food and other services can contribute to these earnings.

Emerging categories

Elevar describes “complex workforce infrastructure” as an emerging category. He sees an opportunity to formalize the existing ecosystem of disorganized hostels and fragmented services rather than simply replace it. He also sees a change in how companies view layoffs. The investor said the problem is increasingly seen not only as a recruitment or wage problem, but also as an infrastructure problem. However, the shift is not widespread yet.

An executive at a large manufacturing company said on condition of anonymity that the company maintains its own systems for housing and managing workers and does not currently use external operators of this nature.

Very large companies generally don’t opt ​​for such measures because their scope, specification and control requirements are different, the executive said. If necessary, the company could consider external measures, but is currently not doing so.

A second executive from another large manufacturer said the company uses a combination of internal and external arrangements. The executive also stressed the importance of organizations looking after contract and migrant workers in a manner comparable to their direct employees.

This suggests that the emerging market for specialist accommodation operators is not yet replacing employer-led housing in the manufacturing sector. Different companies use different models based on their requirements.

The emergence of these companies comes at a time when the government views worker accommodation as part of the infrastructure needed for production. The Union Budget 2024–25 proposed rental housing with hostel-style accommodation for industrial workers through a public-private partnership model, with viability financing and commitments from anchor industries.

The December 2024 NITI Aayog report on “Onsite Accommodation of Factory Workers” recommended a market-driven model for long-term dormitory-style accommodation near workplaces. It envisages that private developers will play a role in developing and operating such housing, with government support including viability gap funding. The report states that such accommodation could facilitate labor mobility, improve productivity and the well-being and retention of workers. It also recommended considering worker accommodation as a critical infrastructure for the growth of Indian manufacturing.

Additional only

For Nia, the role of private operators is a complement to existing welfare systems rather than a replacement. The company said it works alongside schemes like One Nation One Ration One Card, ESIC, EPFO ​​and e-Shram.

Nia also differentiates its role from the employer’s statutory duties. It said its role was to ensure the legally required level of accommodation and social care and then provide services beyond those minimum requirements.

With Ramesh and Karan, much of this difference is not visible. For them, work, peace and the opportunity to build a future away from home are important.