3 lakh buses & limited train services still required to send migrant workers home

Source: Report of the Working Group on Migration, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Govt. of India, January 2017.

Note: Figures are in crores. Numbers are extrapolated for the year 2020 based on Census 2011 figures.

Following the necessary Coronavirus lockdown in India, the horrifying pictures of migrant labourers are coming out from different parts of the country. A 21-day long lockdown was announced at 8 o’clock in the evening with only 4 hours’ notice. So, the migrant workers did not get any time to go back home.

It is not only the question of inter-state migration but, also intra-state migration – rural to urban, urban to urban, rural to rural, all kinds of migration. Some migrants are relatively well-settled but, many others are in desperate need to go back home. If we have to have an idea about the size of the migrant population in India, we need to look at the latest available data.

In 2017, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation brought out a report on migration in India. They extracted data on migrants by place of last residence, sex, reason for migration and duration of residence from 2011 census data.

In 2011, the total population of India was 121 Crore and the total number of migrant population was 45.4 Crore, which was almost 37.5% of the population. If we assume the population size to be 130 Crore today( the speculation is it is 137 Crore), given the same ratio, the size of the migrant population would be 48.75 Crore in India.

More than two-third of them are female migrants and 70% of the female migrants migrated due to marriage. In fact, almost half of the migrants (49%) moved because of marriage. As many as 10.5% of the migrants had moved after birth while 15.5% had moved with the household.

More than 10% of total migrants and almost 28% of male migrants migrated because of work or employment. Almost 1% of the total migrated population moved because of business purposes and 1.8% moved because of educational reason. 11.7% of the total migrants moved because of some other reasons.

If we consider only the migrants because of work/employment, business, education and other purposes, they would be 9.25% of the population. Therefore, assuming 130 crore population, in absolute terms, the number of migrants – other than migration for the reasons of marriage or after birth migration and household migration – would be more than 12 crores, which is equal to around 10% of the total population of India.

Now, many of these 12-crore people desperately want to go back to their near and dear ones amidst lockdown and extreme uncertainties. Two third of them are male migrants and one third female. Out of these 12 crore migrant people 7.2 crore people are residing in the new place for 10 years or more and 4.8 crore people have migrated within 0 to 9 years.

Those who are living in new places for more than 10 years, they are relatively well settled than the others. Out of these 12 crore migrant people, the present residence of 4.5 crore people is in rural areas and the current residence of the rest 7.5 crore are in urban areas.

Migration from urban to rural areas are negligible, as expected. Migration to rural areas primarily happen (90%) from the other rural areas. Almost half of the urban migration happened from rural areas and the other half happened from other urban areas in the country.

Three Crore people are expected to have migrated to urban areas and 1.9 crore to rural areas from different rural and urban areas in India after the year 2010-11. Among these newly migrated people, around 1.1 Crore are expected to be male and 0.8 crore female among the migrants who have moved to different rural areas and around 2.1 crore people are expected to be male and 0.9 crore female among the urban migrants.

While not all of them would like to go back to their native place immediately but, many of them would definitely bedesperate to go back as early as possible. Some of the migrants who have migrated for more than 10 years, may also be in need of going back.

All of them are definitely not stranded – some could manage to go home somehow (particularly if the place of migration is not very far from their home). Even if we assume half of the newly migrated people and one-tenth of the migrants who have migrated before 10 years are in desperation to move back to their home, it is more than three Crore people across the country.

THREE LAKH BUSES

If all the 30 state governments, with the help of private bus services, can arrange around 10,000 buses each, then 3 lakh buses can take those 3 crore migrant workers to some location near their home within a day or two.

It should be planned in an intelligent manner by ensuring all safety measures. For distant migrants like the Bengali migrants in Kerala and so on, limited train services can be provided in a strategic manner.

Let the workers apply through mobile phones in some government helpline numbers in each state/district. The migrant workers should be given at least 21 days’ wage (due to job-loss because of the lockdown) according to the minimum wage norms (of industrial workers in urban areas and that of agricultural labourers in rural areas) of different states and they should be facilitated to go back home for the time being.

Otherwise, there would be huge unrest (as their limited saving is almost over for many of them) and violence would erupt and food-riots may break-out in different parts of India. The law and order situation in the country would be impossible to control. There would also be thousands of starvation deaths.

(The author teaches Economics in JNU)