CIRCULAR
MIGRATION – GEOGRAPHY
News: Circular migration: looking at both
sides of the debate
What's
in the news?
●
Circular migration is a repetitive form of
migration wherein people move to another place (the destination country) and
back (country of origin) according to the availability of employment.
Key
takeaways:
●
In India, internal migration, which is
migration within a particular country or State, has almost always been
circular.
●
With rapid industrialisation, there has
been a huge flow of migrants from rural areas to urban cities.
Circular
Migration:
●
Circular migration or repeat migration is
the temporary and usually repetitive movement of a migrant worker between home
and host areas, typically for the purpose of employment.
Contribution
of Circular Migrants to Indian Economy:
India's circular migrants
are contributing more to the economy through following aspects.
●
Economic
contributions of migrants were around 10% of the Indian
GDP.
●
Remittances
flow towards the families of migrants those are living poorer parts of the
country.
●
Internal
migrants increase the working age populations of the
destination states.
●
Migrants provide cheap labour force to the major sectors like textile (eg. Tirupur),
construction, stone queries & mines, Brick-kilns, seasonal agricultural
works (eg. Punjab and Haryana)
Issues
faced by Circular migrants:
1.
Employment in informal economy:
●
Migrants dominate the urban informal
economy which is marked by high poverty and vulnerabilities.
●
In an unorganized and chaotic labour
market, migrant workers regularly face conflicts and disputes at worksites.
●
The common issues they face are
non-payment of wages, physical abuse, accidents and even death at work.
2.
Issue of Identification documents:
●
Proving their identity is one of the core
issues faced by poor migrant labourers at destination areas.
●
The basic problem of establishing identity
results in a loss of access to entitlements and social services such as
subsidized food, fuel, health services or education that are meant for the
economically vulnerable sections of the population.
3.
Housing:
●
Lack of affordable housing in Indian
cities force migrants to live in slums.
●
Many seasonal migrants are not even able
to afford rents in slums force them to live at their workplaces (such as
construction sites and hotel dining rooms), shop pavements or in open areas in
the city.
4.
Financial Access:
●
Migrant workers have limited access to
formal financial services and remain unbanked.
5.
Access to healthcare:
●
Migrant workers have poor access to health
services, which results in very poor occupational health.
6.
Education of children:
●
UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring
Report (GEM Report) shows that children left behind by migrating parents and
seasonal migrants face fewer educational opportunities overall.
●
According to the report, 80% of migrant
children across seven Indian cities did not have access to education near
worksites.
●
Among youth aged 15 to 19 who have grown
up in a rural household with a seasonal migrant, 28% were identified as
illiterate or had an incomplete primary education.
7.
Social exclusion:
●
There is a growing hostility of urban
governments, as well as middle-class citizens, towards the urban poor,
especially migrants to the cities.
8.
Political exclusion:
●
Migrant workers are deprived of many
opportunities to exercise their political rights.
●
A 2011 study pointed out that 22% of
seasonal migrant workers in India did not possess voter IDs or have their names
in the voter list.
9.
At policy level the major challenge
is to formulate migration policies which must be linked with employment and
social services, to enhance the well-being of the migrant living in urban
areas.
Measures
needs to be taken:
1.
Role of Centre:
●
Migrants would be well served if the
Centre played a proactive role by offering strategic policy guidance and a
platform for inter-State coordination.
●
State-level political economy constraints
make the Centre’s role particularly crucial in addressing issues of inter-State
migrant workers at ‘destination States’.
2.
Bringing Migration Policy in Force:
●
At a time when economic recovery and
inclusive growth are urgent policy goals, migration policy can hardly afford to
be delayed.
3.
NITI Aayog’s Draft Policy on Migrant Workers is a positive
step forward in articulating policy priorities and indicating suitable
institutional frameworks, and deserves a speedy release.
4.
Strategic initiatives to provide migrants safety nets
regardless of location as well as bolster their ability to migrate safely and
affordably must keep up the momentum towards migrant-supportive policy.
5.
Recognition of Migrants:
●
Recognition of circular migrants as part
of India’s urban population might compel authorities to at least consider how
proposed policies might impact these communities.
6.
Women Migrants:
●
Special Measures should also take into
account particularly the situation of migrant women, who are mainly involved in
domestic work.
Although the new policy
aims to be inclusive of all kinds of marginalized migrants, it could do more to
explicitly mention the challenges faced by domestic workers. It would be very
easy for them to remain excluded as India has not ratified the ILO Convention
on Domestic Workers and The Domestic Workers Bill 2017 has not become law.