Concern over north Indian workers in Tamil Nadu: What the numbers say about India’s migrants

 

A possible exodus of migrant workers from Tamil Nadu has raised concern after videos showed purported attacks on Hindi-speaking men. Here’s what is known about India’s inter-state migration numbers.

Manufacturers in Tamil Nadu have expressed concern over the possibility of North Indian workers leaving the state after videos — rejected as fake by the government — purportedly showing Hindi-speaking men being assaulted, created panic among migrants. Almost a million migrants are estimated to work in Tamil Nadu, and industry bodies fear the state’s industrial and manufacturing sector would be severely impacted by an exodus. The large scale reverse migration of workers to their home states during the Covid-19 lockdown three years ago had seriously disrupted economic activity.

The government data on migration within the country is not comprehensive and, in many cases, old. The 2011 census reported the number of internal migrants in India at 45.36 crore, making up 37% of the country’s population. This number included both inter-state migrants and migrants within each state. The annual net migrant flows amounted to about 1 per cent of the working age population.

As per the 2011 census, India’s workforce was 48.2 crore strong. This figure is estimated to have exceeded 50 crore in 2016 — the Economic Survey that year pegged the size of the migrant workforce at roughly 20 per cent of the population, or more than 10 crore individuals.

District-wise migration data in the Economic Survey for 2016-17 showed that the highest influx of migrants within the country was in city-districts such as Gurugram, Delhi, and Mumbai; along with Gautam Budh Nagar (Uttar Pradesh); Indore and Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh); Bengaluru (Karnataka); and Thiruvallur, Chennai, Kancheepuram, Erode, and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).

The highest outward movement of migrant workers was from Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Moradabad, Rampur, Kaushambi, Faizabad, and 33 other districts of Uttar Pradesh; Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Rudra Prayag, Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Almora, and Champawat in Uttarakhand; Churu, Jhunjhunu, and Pali in Rajasthan; Darbhanga, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Sheikhpura, Bhojpur, Buxar, and Jehanabad in Bihar; Dhanbad, Lohardaga, and Gumla in Jharkhand; and Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra.

As per the Report of the Working Group on Migration, 2017 under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, 17 districts accounted for the top 25% of India’s total male out-migration. Ten of these districts are in UP, six in Bihar, and one in Odisha. (See map above)

“Relatively less developed states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have high net out-migration. Relatively more developed states take positive CMM (Cohort-based Migration Metric) values reflecting net immigration: Goa, Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The largest recipient was the Delhi region, which accounted for more than half of migration in 2015-16, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar taken together account for half of total out-migrants. Maharashtra, Goa and Tamil Nadu had major net in-migration, while Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh had major net out-migration,” the Economic Survey said.

More recent numbers

A report, ‘Migration in India 2020-21’, released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in June 2022 had collated some numbers for temporary visitors and migrants. As per the report, 0.7 per cent of the country’s population was recorded as a ‘temporary visitor’ across households during the July 2020-June 2021 period after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

While temporary visitors were defined as those who arrived in households after March 2020 and stayed continuously for a period of 15 days or more but less than 6 months, ‘migrants’ were defined as those for whom the last usual place of residence any time in the past is different from the present place of enumeration.

Over 84 per cent of these 0.7 per cent temporary visitors moved places for reasons linked to the pandemic, ranging from loss of job/ closure of unit/ lack of employment opportunities, migration of earning member, closure of educational institutions and health-related reasons, and meeting family/ relatives/ friends, it showed.

A total 48.9 per cent of temporary visitors moved to meet family/ relatives/ friends between July 2020 and June 2021, while 15.7 per cent of such temporary visitors moved for health-related reasons, and 12.2 per cent due to loss of job/ closure of unit/ lack of employment opportunities.

The all-India migration rate was 28.9 per cent for July 2020-June 2021, with a 26.5 per cent migration rate in rural areas and 34.9 per cent in urban areas.

Females recorded a higher share of migration rate of 47.9 per cent; 48 per cent in rural and 47.8 per cent in urban areas. Migration rate for males was 10.7 per cent, with 5.9 per cent in rural and 22.5 per cent in urban areas.

Among females, the highest level of migration rate was seen at 86.8 per cent for marriage, while 49.6 per cent of the males migrated in search of employment, to take up better employment/ business/ proximity to place of work, or loss of job/ closure of unit/ lack of employment opportunities.

Written by Aanchal Magazine

Source: Indian Express, 7/03/23