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NOIDA, India — After a decade labouring on building sites around New Delhi Akhilesh Kumar lost his scaffolding job last month when his employer halted work on an array of 30 residential towers.

He joins more than half a million workers let go from sites around India’s capital in the last 18 months, in a stark sign that the ground reality in Asia’s third-largest economy is far from as rosy as official data suggests.

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The deepening downturn in India’s crucial building sector makes it easily understandable why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image as the country’s economic saviour has lost its lustre just over a year after his resounding election victory.

“If I don’t get another job, I have no other choice but to go back to my village and work as a farm labourer,” said Kumar, who is in his twenties.

The decade-long construction boom in burgeoning cities like Noida, where Kumar earned US$165 a month, lured millions of laborers from India’s rural hinterlands in search of a better life, creating one in every three new jobs.