Impact of internal migration on India's financial allocation; challenges and way forward  

The internal migration trend indicates that one third of India’s population qualify to be migrant based on the criteria of place of last residence being different from the place of enumeration.

Population features across world nations have been more in contention today than in the past given the compositional imbalances on one hand and the threat of sustaining itself on the other. Rising longevity and diminishing reproduction has given rise to a situation where in the third component of population change i.e. migration is assuming greater significance. Given this emerging transformation and being a population billionaire, reading India’s population dynamics based on surveys and projection is having its own limitation that cannot be overlooked. Is it possible to debate on migration as one of the components for the transfer of financial resources to the states in the context of the sixteenth Finance Commission?

Significance of Migration in Population Dynamics 

Thirteen years have elapsed since the last population count and the last decade has witnessed a silent revolution in transformation in regional features of age composition that needs to be understood for making any judgement on future trajectories of population distribution within India. While numerous attempts are made at avoiding the census and replacing the same with varying statistics obtained in surveys and administrative records, it should be realized that these are not replacement for census with its unique attribute of complete enumeration. In fact, census offers beyond a headcount in terms of age-sex structure in association with varied set of attributes that comprehends population dynamics in a detailed manner to guide for emerging needs.

Need for Comprehensive Census Data 

The need for a population count along with an understanding of population mobility (otherwise the internal migration) is rather urgent given the visible regional disparities and differential well-being across regions. The internal migration trend indicates that one third of India’s population qualify to be migrant based on the criteria of place of last residence being different from the place of enumeration. According to our estimates in the absence of census, India has close 600 million migrants, of which 200 million are labour migrants. This migration pattern defines sending regions and receiving regions and imbalance between the two results in gaining states and loosing states. Such a consequence is materialized owing to the internal demographic diversity of India with differential pace of demographic transition of Indian states. There is a clear north-south divide in this regard and consequentially the southern India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka) qualifies to be a gaining zone against the north (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) being the loosing zone. Being entirely unaware of the internal population mobility taking place between regions and states might hinder many policies and strategies of governance. How can Finance Commission address this inequality?

Internal migration and its characteristic aspects are vital not only to gauge the pattern but also to recognize the consequences of such mobility in the place of origin as well as the destination. Further, it is also essential to ensure migrant’s entitlements at the place of destination given their vulnerabilities in accessing public provisioning at large.

Apart from the usual migrants moving across state and district boundaries, there are short duration migrants in the form of seasonal labour migration which is quite often missed while reading internal mobility. Given the contemporary focus on building smart cities, one can expect a lot more of such mobility which will remain discounted. The role of labour migration that is ought to happen in shaping the so-called smart cities in ultimate terms needs an accounting as regard its welfare or ill-fare implications in the Finance commission transfer to states.

In the absence of any migration statistics available based on a complete enumeration, the most recent trend highlighted according to the PLFS survey situates the all India internal migration rate at 28.9 per cent and it appears to be an underestimate if one compares the same against the levels of internal migration reported in 2011 census. Further, the urban centric bias in this migration rate too is a matter of concern given the rising degree of urbanization and the indiscriminate urban mobility arising out of rural distress. This has its own implication for ensuring migrant’s wellbeing in urban environment.

Gender Differences in Migration Trends 

Reading this migration in gender divide does indicate a female bias owing to marriage as the primary reason but then the discrepancy of male migration rate in rural scene is 5.9 per cent as against the same being 22.5 per cent in urban areas indicate the urban destined migration intensity in general and male bias in particular. Finally, the internal migrants in terms of inter-state and intra-state divide informs a two third share of migrants being inter-state leaving the rest one third as intra-state migrants. The predominance of inter-state migration is indicative of uneven urbanization with locational imbalance of cities across the states which require an attention by the Finance Commission.

Need for Balanced Infrastructure and Policy Convergence

Absence of the count of migrants has numerous short coming in terms of the claims that is made as regard restricting compulsive mobility from regions short of employment opportunities and the widening of the regional divide in terms of infrastructure.  Such infrastructure is mainly in terms of health and education which needs attention. While there are claims made as regard achieving universal higher education, the higher education infrastructure has a skewed presence with a southern bias accompanied with the number of aspirants for higher education having a northern bias. This explicit pattern will undoubtedly induce student migration across regions and result in inequities in educational achievement. Similarly, the most touted universal health coverage too will be a dream reality unless health infrastructure and human resource for health are balanced across regions of this country.

Any number of schemes and digitalisation will never replace infrastructural balance that is pre-requisite for convergence in outcomes.  A comprehension of internal mobility along with the evolving degree of urbanization remains an immediate requirement to gauge the welfare divide and various unfounded claims of regional outlook of govt policies and priorities.

(S Irudaya Rajan Chair and Honorary Visiting Professor at the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), Kerala, India. Udaya S Mishra is currently a Professor at IIPS, Mumbai and a former Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala.)

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.