From Poor to Poorer?

Ajay Sharma on September 3rd, 2013

Even as debates on the different measures of poverty levels and poverty lines run their course, there is an uncounted population which is struggling to find its identity. This is the growing numbers of internal migrants of India that are largely invisible.

The total number of migrants as per the census of India, 1971 is 167 million persons, 1981 census 213 million, 1991 census 232 million and 2001 census 315 million.

It is in the nature of things that people move from one place to another in search of better livelihoods, better occupations, better education, or more convenient places to live. The so-called development policies of the government, has resulted in uneven development in India prompting the poor to be poorer and leave their birth place in search of jobs. It is said that due to economic growth people move from rural to urban areas. Because of the booming industrial, construction and service sector jobs people migrate from villages to towns and cities. But the jobs that they get are mainly in in-human conditions.

Study [Mahapatro, 2013] shows that that there is an increasing trend of migration among the lowest economic quintile and declining for other economic classes. This shows that the people who are migrating are the poor people.

The migrants in India have little education (Srivastava 2003). All these migrants are mainly absorbed in casual and informal sector jobs. These are low paid, insecure and unproductive. The construction industry provides employment to a large number of workers. The poor and lower caste/tribe migrants tend to remain in low-paid unskilled jobs. The work in informal sector has brought them hardships and risks. The sad part of the story is that the migrants have no promises of jobs but still they are migrating. But for many illiterate migrants this is the only option.
With no education and information they have no awareness about their rights. Thus they are not able to access food grains supplied through Public Distribution Schemes (PDS), government schools and hospitals etc. They are not able to get the other benefits provided to them through various acts and bills.
When a person moves from one place to another, his family also moves with him. A study by DISHA, an NGO in Gujarat found that over half the migrants slept in the open and the rest had very perfunctory accommodation. They face harassment, abuse, theft, forcible eviction or the demolition of their dwellings by urban authorities or police. The children of these migrants live in these poor and unhealthy conditions that do not have access to education. Children and women are abused in many ways. They also fall into the vicious circle of poverty.
Some studies have also shown that the migrant workers get salaried jobs. But there is no indication if they are better off in their new place.
There is an urgent need to provide at least the basic needs to internal migrants country. More importantly they need to be recognized as citizens in the places they migrate to, with the same rights to entitlements as those who are native to the place. Pro-poor policies have to reach the migrant workers, particularly to women and children.
Seasonal migration is also a very prominent type of migration among the lower sections of the society. There has to be appropriate social welfare policies that will take care of the welfare rights of these migrants. But in order to target policies more research studies have to be undertaken to understand the poverty and living conditions of these workers that are growing in numbers.

Reference:

Sandhya Rani Mahapatro, 2012. The Changing Pattern of Internal Migration in India
Issues and Challenges, European Population Conference, Princeton. http://www.esocialsciences.org/Articles/showArticle.aspx?acat=Recent+Articles&aid=5426.
Srivastava, R. (2003). An overview of migration in India, its impacts and key issues. Paper prepared for the Regional Conference on Migration, Development and Pro-Poor Policy Choices in Asia. 22–24 June 2003 Dhaka, Bangladesh.