- Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) - Global Report on Internal Displacement, 2020 (GRID, 2020).
- Globally, 33.4 million new displacements took place in 2019 highest since 2012.
- South Asia region has highest share of new displacements.
- India had highest number of new disaster displacements (five million) in world in 2019 result of increasing hazard intensity, high population exposure, conflicts and high levels of social and economic vulnerability, cyclones like Fani, Vayu, Bulbul etc along with south west monsoon and droughts in various parts
- Migrant- Census defines a migrant as a person residing in a place other than his/her place of birth (Place of Birth definition) or one who has changed his/ her usual place of residence to another place (change in usual place of residence or UPR definition). number of internal migrants in India was 450 million as per 2011 census.
- COVID-19 exodus (during lockdown) of large number of migrants (in some parts of the country) to reach their hometowns has highlighted the prevalent migrant problem.
Migrant Composition
- Seasonal Migrants: Economic Survey 2017-139 million seasonal or circular migrants in the country.
- Dominate low-paying, hazardous and informal market jobs in key sectors in urban destinations, such as construction, hotel, textile, manufacturing, transportation, services, domestic work etc
- Seasonal or circular migrants have different labor market experiences and integration challenges than more permanent migrants
Reasons for Internal Migration
- Push Factor: Unemployment in hinterland- do not find sufficient economic opportunities in rural areas and move instead to towns and cities
- Marriage: especially among women
- Pull-factor: Due to better employment opportunities, livelihood facilities etc cities of Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata
Issues that Internal Migration creates
- Non-portability of entitlements for migrant labourers (such as the Public Distribution System) gets aggravated due to absence of identity documentation.
- Absence of reliable data: statistical account of their number and an understanding of the nature of their mobility.
- large majority of migrants hail from historically marginalized groups such as the SCs and STs
- Exploitation by Employers and Contractors (Middlemen): in the form of Non-payment of wages, physical abuse, accidents.
- Lack of Education: for children of migrants intergenerational transmission of poverty
- Housing: Migration and slums are inextricably linked
- Social Exclusion: Since the local language and culture is different from their region of origin they face harassment and political exclusion.
- Stuck in the cycle of poverty
Additional issues due to COVID-19
- Uncertainty and desperation: migrants leaving by foot, or on overcrowded buses and vans
- Lack of Quarantine facilities
- Disrupting the Agricultural Cycle: Many seasonal migrants usually head home before June for the sowing season.
- Apprehensions from source regions: For example people in villages in West Bengal who don’t want these workers coming back, particularly from Maharashtra and Kerala
- Increasing unemployment: ILO, about 400 million people working in the informal economy in India are at risk of falling deeper into poverty.
Measures to be adopted
- Universal foodgrain distribution FCI godowns overflowing with stored grains at present
- Direct cash transfers: instead of routing it through bank accounts
- Inter-state coordination committee to ensure safe passage of migrants to their villages
- Legal cell at the central and state levels to protect wages.
- Mapping of migrant workers: create a database to map migrant workers scattered across the country.
Need to recognize migrant workers as a dynamic part of a changing India, migration instead of being part of the problem will start becoming part of the solution.