8/7/2017 AnoverviewofmigrationinIndia,itsimpactsandkeyissues|Eldis

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An overview of migration in India, its impacts and key issues

Published Jan 2003

Authors

R. Srivastava, S.K. Sasikumar

Publisher

Eldis Document Store

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Focus themes

Livelihoods, Livelihoods migration, Migration, Internal migration

Focus regions

South Asia

Focus countries

India

OPEN FULL REPORT

Impacts of internal and international migration on Indian development

This paper reviews both internal migration in India and emigration of Indians to other countries, drawing on secondary sources
to prole migrant workers, and to identify the causes and impacts of migration.

Its ndings include:

internal migration often involves longer working hours, poor living and working conditions, social isolation and poor access to
basic amenities
while there seems to be some positive impact on incomes and investment, the major function of internal migration is to act
as a safety valve in poor areas
most migrant labourers in India are employed in the unorganised sector, where the lack of regulation compounds their vulnerability; they are largely
ignored by government and NGO programmes
legislation regarding migrants fails because regulatory authorities are over-stretched; the state sees migrants as a low priority; and migrant workers
have little support from civil society
international migrants have mainly come from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab, and have consisted of people with professional
expertise of technical qualications migrating to industrialised countries; and skilled and semi-skilled workers migrating to the Middle East
overseas migrants account for less than one per cent of the total workforce of India, so have little direct impact on the national labour market;
however, the e ects are signicant in major sending regions such as Kerala, where there emigration has reduced unemployment
emittances are the main benet of external migration, providing scarce foreign exchange and scope for higher levels of savings and investments
in Kerala, remittances made up 21 per cent of state income in the 1990s, and emigation appears to have increased the wealth of the state.

On the basis of these ndings, the paper recommends that government should focus on improving the synergy between migration and development
policies; in particular:

labour legislation should be enforced more strictly, with necessary simplication and modication of laws where necessary
panchayats could act as a resource pool for migrants residing in their area, maintaining a register of migrant workers and working with NGOs to cut
transaction costs and upgrade the workers skills
a labour market authority should be set up to monitor the labour markets of the major labour-importing countries, carry out negotiations on labour
contracts, and study the nature of emerging skill requirements
the 1983 Emigration Act should be liberalised to bring it into line with current market conditions, and to remove the motive for recruitment agents to
operate outside of the law
advocacy campaigns should aim to address stereotypes and misapprehensions about migrants and to raise their political voice.

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