There have been numerous studies conducted and reports written on the increasing flow of persons within states. The trend of internal migration has become more intense in the backdrop of rural development initiative. As most of the migrant flows are observed from rural to urban areas, the debate in academic circles engages on the condition of migrant families at destination areas. Here we use the resources from the SHRAM database, extracting migration data from 2001 census reports to infer the recent trends in migration flows across states.
Maharashtra is the top destination for migrants from other states with a population of 43 thousand migrants who had migrated under 1 year, according to census 2001 data. Popular consensus would consider Delhi to among the top three, the other being West Bengal. However, the state of Uttar Pradesh stands a distant second with a migrant population of 14 thousand. It is closely followed by Delhi at third position with about 13,300 migrants. West Bengal is seen losing its prominence as a destination state as the data shows. Only around 10 thousand persons migrated to this state in the last one year. The data also reveals Gujarat gaining importance as a destination state for migrants with a population of 13 thousand, at forth position. This is as far as the data is concerned. But it raises some issues-why there exists such major difference in migrant numbers between the top destination and the rest. The surprising presence of Uttar Pradesh as a destination state; southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu do not feature in the top five destinations.
Although our data has been limited to those who have migrated under one year (SHRAM Data hub), it could be also be understood in other way i.e., the incremental increase in flow of migrants to the states which have a long history of receiving migrants across India. By using the concept of place of last residence, it enables capturing the latest of the migration in cases where people have migrated more than once. Selecting those who have migrated under less than one year, it provides the current migration scenario as opposed to taking long-term migration trend.
Media and literature have always sided with Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai and Delhi as the top migrant destinations. Migrants flows to these regions has received considerable attention; be it social security at destination, employment, pressure on existing infrastructure and the likes. Especially in the case of Delhi and Mumbai urban agglomerations (U.A.), the flow of migrants has been the largest. Aggregating decadal data (1991-2001), Mumbai U.A has seen the largest number of in-migrants, both from within the state of Maharashtra and other states. Similarly, Delhi U.A. has received 1.9 million migrants from other states, the largest among the urban agglomerations. In terms of proportion of migrants to total population in the U.As, Delhi UA came at the top with 16.4 percent of total comprising of migrants followed by Greater Mumbai (15.1 percent) and Bangalore UA (13.4 percent). However, if we discount for the UAs from the top destination states, does the scenario change? As per our figures, the ordering does alter. The emergence of Uttar Pradesh as the second most preferred destination states for in-migrants needs meticulous explanation.
A state-wise analysis of the figures tells that Uttar Pradesh received the highest number of in-migrants from Chhattisgarh, followed by Bihar. A similar analysis for Maharashtra brings Karnataka at the top, with Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh following at second and third place. Thus, state-wise distribution hints at Uttar Pradesh being both the state of origin and destination. It could be inferred that U.P plays the role of a transit state, wherein, people had migrated to U.P before locating to other states such as Maharashtra.
Secondly, Gujarat is emerging as a prominent destination state for in-migrants which can be attributed to its rapid economic growth. Improvement in its industrial sector performance has led to recent inflow of formal sector workers from other states, primarily from Maharashtra. This shows that economic factors are a major factor of migration. It could be postulated that going ahead, Gujarat could become the top destination state for in-migrants in search of better economic opportunities and it wouldn’t be a surprise to notice Maharashtra as the major state of origin of such migrant flows.
Coming to the issue of southern states, the data shows relatively less number of in-migrants, with a migrant population of 93 thousand in Karnataka and around 44 thousand in Andhra Pradesh. There has been an increasing influx of migrants from Odisha, West Bengal, etc as observed from several reports. This discrepancy in data could be the result of inability of census to capture the larger picture of seasonal and distress migration.
Although latest figures on migration are yet to be released (Census 2011), the above discussion gives us an indication to the likely outcomes in terms of inflows of migrants and the associated factors behind it. We could see large inflows to Gujarat from the neighboring state of Maharashtra followed by Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Meanwhile, West Bengal as a destination state may lose out on account of stagnancy in its state machinery which is hurting its economic growth. The presence of Uttar Pradesh among the top destination state and also as state of origin could be explained as its position of a transit state wherein, people initially migrate to UP before migrating to other locations. A better explanation will be realized once the official reports confirm the top destination and origin states of internal migration.
Aritra Chakrabarty
As a social researcher, I believe in knowledge-based policy action. With a postgraduate degree in Development Studies, I've been associated with social issues in my professional space. As a part of SHRAMIC initiative, was involved with data creation, sourcing of resources that will become the knowledge bank of this project.
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It was a new trend u revealed through this article that Uttar Pradesh is not only a source state but it is also a major destination state for migrant labour of nearby less economically well off states like CH and Bihar. I also agree with you question on inability of census data in capturing number of seasonal and distress migrants. As we have seen from our field experience that now a days hundred of youths are migrating to southern states like Kerla and Aandra Pradesh in search of better wages from tribal dominant district Chindwara of Madhya Pradesh.
Can you please name the major destination sites in Uttar Pradesh and what is the pattern of migration is it Rural to Rural or Rural to Urban etc.
Dear Sir,
Please let me know where could I get migration data for two districts in Karnataka.
Dear Suparno,
The data for migration is included in SHRAM Data Hub which provides Census 2001 data. You can select the required parameters under that section and the required data-set will be generated.