Migration..India..

...migration....
Some interesting insights on migration provided by CENSUSof INDIA 2001:
*. During the reporting period, 30% reported as migrants by place of birth
*. During the last decade (1991-2001), the number of migrants in India (excluding J&K) rose by 32.9%, the total number of migrants by place of last residence in India (excluding J&K) grew by 34.7% during 1991-2001.
*. High growth (53.6%) among interstate migrants was also observed.
*. Total migrants by last residence (0-9 yrs) accounted to 98.3 million
*. 43.8% moved due to marriage, 21.0% moved with their households, 14.7% migrated due to work, 6.7% moved after their birth, 3% for educational purposes, 1.2% for business and 9.7% specified other reasons.
*. About 42.4 million migrants out of total 65.4 million female migrants cited marriage as the reason for migration. Among males the most important reason for migration was ‘Work/Employment’, 12.3 million out of 32.8 million total male migrants migrated due to this reason.
*. During the decade, out of the urban growth of 30.3 per cent, 6.6 per cent is accountedfor by migration to urban areas.
*. If one takes away those migrants who moved due to marriage, the total number ofmigrants falls from 98.3 million to 55.2 million. Total number of migrants among males and females were 32.2 million and 22.9 million respectively.
Causes and Trends in Migration
India owing to its scope and scale witnesses all kinds of migration. A few major causes and / or trends observed in the course of migration are listed below:
*. Academically and technically qualified experts emigrating to industrialized countries (Nearly 1.25 million Indians emigrated to the US, Canada, UK and Australia between 1950 and 2000)
*. Unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labourers migrating to Middle East countries for undertaking blue collar jobs. (More than 3 million Indian migrants live in Gulf countries, with most of them coming from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab).
*. Students migrating to USA, UK, Australia and other European countries to pursue higher education
*. Internal displacement owing to political causes, including secessionist movements; identity-based autonomy movements; local violence, such as caste disputes and riots fuelled by religious fundamentalism and environment and development induced displacement. While the World Refugee Survey puts the total number of InternallyDisplaced Persons in India at 507,000, the Indian Social Institute in Delhi puts the figure at 21.3 million in its global survey of IDPs. Environmental changes and natural disasters such as floods and droughts have been reasons for displacement, affecting the populations of both flood-prone areas and excessively dry regions.
*. Advanced technologies in the agro and fishing sector have grossly depleted natural resources thus forcing most male members in the agro and fishing communities to migrate. Such migrant male members seek unprotected sexual favours and on the other hand, the women that they have left behind in their villages fall easy prey to traffickers, thus creating the supply and demand factors that fuel both trafficking and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Pitfalls..
In the case of most intra-state and inter-state unskilled and semi-skilled migrants, migrant labourers run high risks of exploitation for they are exposed to large uncertainties and lack access to information and knowledge, thus making it very difficult for them to switch jobs in case of dissatisfaction with the current employer. Because of their option-less situation, these labourers lack bargaining power and thereby fail to negotiate reasonable pay scales and fair working conditions with the contractors.
*. Most migrants live in open spaces, make shift shelters or illegal settlements, which lack the basic infrastructure and access to civic amenities. They have no local ration cards which can provide themtheir food at subsidized rates through the Public Distribution system. They are highly prone to occupational health hazards and vulnerable to epidemics including HIV/AIDS.
*. Since the migrants are mobile, their children have nocrèche facilities or access to schooling. They do not come under the purview of either the local government or the NGO PROGRAMMES for they do not belong to that particular region. So citing the problem of monitoring, most agencies leave them outside the scope of development intervention.
*. In India, labour migrants are largely found in the developed states, the traditional migrant-receiving states, typically, coming from underdeveloped regions of the country and being comprised primarily of the most marginalized sectors of society, namely the Tribals and the Scheduled Castes (SCs). These migrants are entirely without legal protection or social security. They are “invisible”, and are not acknowledged and are denied access even to basic amenities in most of the cases. They have no identity in the places where they live and no voice in the places they have left behind.
Migration offers a very fertileground for traffickers. In India, migrants who leave their homes in search for better employment opportunities and marital prospects, fall easy preys to traffickers for want of adequate information. India performs all the three roles ofbeing a country of origin, transit and destination in the process of trafficking.