Migration to bigger cities in India should be checked by imposing restrictions and allowing permits for living in these cities . Write an article in about 500 words in favour of the statement
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The Economic Survey of India 2017 estimates that the magnitude of inter-state migration in India was close to 9 million annually between 2011 and 2016, while Census 2011 pegs the total number of internal migrants in the country (accounting for inter- and intra-state movement) at a staggering 139 million. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the biggest source states, followed closely by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal; the major destination states are Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
Not so smart cities
To address this issue of growing urbanization, the government of India launched the “100 Smart Cities Mission” in 2015 among other urban development projects. It has also pledged massive investments in the smart cities project. In the last few years, smart cities have become a prominent buzzword among technologists, urban planners, the government and the private sector.
While smart cities may or may not find solutions to the issues of urbanization in India, they have already left behind a major chunk of its population: the poor and marginalized. Among these poor and marginalized lies the doubly peripheral and ignored section of seasonal migrants. When urban planners discuss the issues of urbanization and provide smart solutions, they completely miss accounting for migrant workers as part of the city.
To devise policies and provide services for seasonal migrant workers, the state needs to have a realistic statistical account of their number and an understanding of the nature of their mobility. Unfortunately, the Indian state fails on both accounts. Official agencies tend to underestimate short-term movements, and thus play down or miss seasonal migration altogether, which according to recent field studies account for the bulk of migratory movements for work. Further, census data is collected after a gap of 10 years and is “stock data”, unable to capture the sharp increase in mobility that has occurred in India.
Vulnerabilities faced by seasonal migrants
Seasonal migrants dominate the low-paying, hazardous and informal market jobs in key sectors in urban destinations, such as construction, hotel, textile, manufacturing, transportation, services, domestic work etc.
They have poor access to health services, which results in very poor occupational health. Since they cannot afford private hospitals, they often go back to their villages once they fall sick. This affects their employment opportunities, as well as the loss of wages. A large number of migrants find work as unskilled labourers since they enter the job market at a very early age, experience no upward mobility and remain stuck in the most unskilled, poorly paid and hazardous jobs for their whole work-life span. As depicted in the graphic below detailing the economic lifestyle of migrant workers in south Rajasthan, this has severe inter-generational implications, transferring vulnerability, poor health and low level of skills from the parents to children.