New Delhi, July 14 -- Every weekday morning at 6.30 am in India's factory clusters-Manesar, Noida, Dholera, Hosur, and many more-a unique scene emerges. Factory supervisors start scouting for workers. They reach out to the local labour contractors to round up as many workers as possible, depending on that day's shortage on the factory floors.

Greenway Grameen Infra, a small manufacturer of biomass cookstoves in Vadodara, saw a spurt in demand in March during the energy crisis following the war in West Asia. Ankit Mathur, the co-founder of the company, desperately looked for up to 40 workers to add to its existing workforce of about 100. He reached out to this network to cover the shortage.

"We tried the local network to get more people....