Disquietude in Tamil Nadu about the Tenacious Migration of laborers

The possible migration of North Indian workers from Tamil Nadu has raised anxiety following the release of a video on outrageous attacks against Hindi speakers.  

Panic among Tamil Nadu Manufacturers  

Many manufacturers in Tamil Nadu expressed concerns over the fleeting North Indian workers. This estimated exodus doesn’t seem to stop even after the government falsifies the video released on the assault of Hindi-speaking laborers. 

As per a recent report, almost a million migrants seem to work in Tamil Nadu. Thus, chances of migration taking a heavy toll on industries are quite high when already the large-scale transfer of workers back to their homes during the COVID-imposed lockdown has misbalanced the economy hugely.  

Survey on migration in India: Reading Tamil Nadu 

The government’s collected records on migration are usually not apprehensible and, at times, obsolete. As per the 2001 census, the number of internal migrations within India accounted for 45.36 crores, constituting almost 37 percent of the population in India. This number is a measure of both interstate and interregional migrations. The annual net flow of migrants made up approximately 1 percent of the total working population.  

The 2001 survey recorded the Indian workforce as crossing 48.2 crores, which got even fifty times multiplied by 2016, as per the current Economic Survey. The annual migration workforce then formed 20 percent of the overall population or more than 10 crore individuals.   

The data documented by the survey of 2016–17 over the district-wise migrations displayed some of the highest migration in cities of Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Chennai, etc. The highest migration of workers happened from cities in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and others.  

The 2017 Report on Migration Studies under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation registered that 25 percent of India’s migrated male workers were accounted for in just 17 districts. Ten of these districts are located in Uttar Pradesh, six in Bihar, and one in Odisha. 

Comparatively less-developed states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh seemed to have larger net out-migration, while the other, more developed states had a more positive CMM, showcasing their large-scale immigration. The Delhi region became the largest recipient of more than half of the migrants in 2015–16. On the other side, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh together made up almost half of the total number of migrants who left. Whereas Maharashtra, Goa, and Tamil Nadu constituted the major net in-migration, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh accounted for the major out-migration. 

A current report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, “Migration in India 2020-21,” released in June 2022, gathered some data to estimate the approximate numbers of temporary migrants and visitors. According to the report, 0.7 percent of all individuals appeared to be temporary visitors in July 2020–21, at the time of the onset of the pandemic.  

The report delineated “visitors” who left in March 2020 but got back to their cities within six months. While the “migrants” were termed as those for whom present residence stood in contrast with their place of livelihood in the past.  

In addition to 0.7 percent, 84 percent of migrants moved during the pandemic in favor of housing, family, job, health, education, and other facilities. 48.9 percent of all migrants moved only to meet their families or relatives, while 15.7 percent searched for better healthcare options, and approximately 12.2 percent had to leave forcibly because of losing jobs, shutting down of workplace, or bad working conditions.  

The total migration rate for July 2020–June 2021 was 28.9 percent, with a migration rate of 34.9 percent in urban areas and 26.5 percent in rural places. 

However, the total female rate of migration exceeded the male migration percentage. It constituted 48 percent in rural and 47.8 percent in urban, in comparison to 5.9 percent in rural and 22.5 percent in urban, respectively. Though for females the majority of cases of resettlement were a consequence of marriage, in the case of males, rehousing was done for better opportunities or easy sustenance.