The magistrate also found that the Ooriya mistries were not licensed plumbers.” Plumbers from Odisha are not a new phenomenon, at least in Kolkata. There was a suggestion that Muslim plumbers emigrated to East Pakistan after Independence and the vacuum they left was filled by plumbers from Odisha. In any event, there have been plenty of Odia plumbers in Kolkata and there are plenty of Odia plumbers everywhere in India now. IPSC’s estimate is 70 per cent of the plumbers come from Kendrapara and there are 800,000 plumbers. If both numbers are correct (I suspect they aren’t), you get 560,000 plumbers from Kendrapara, not 100,000.

Source: Indian Express May 15, 2019 18:48 UTC