Neglected builders of modern India: Internal migrants are an asset

In 2011, India had 400 million internal migrants, a full third of its population, according to an estimate cited in a recent UN report, Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India. This represents mobility for the sake of livelihood, often seasonal. Reports say that 70-80% of migrants are women — marriage transfers them from the father’s home to the husband’s — likely to face harsh conditions and exploitation at work. Mobility has its advantages —the promise of finding opportunities in a city as opposed to stagnating in the rural economy — but there are associated risks. The most important is the loss of identity without appropriate paperwork, which could lead to exclusion of social, medical and other state-given benefits. To resolve this problem, the government must roll out its Aadhaar scheme, which gives a biometrically established identity to all residents, faster. Armed with an Aadhaar identity, migrants would be free to go anywhere in India in search of better jobs and incomes. Once physical subsidies are replaced by direct cash transfers, in combination with Aadhaar, migrants would be entitled to their full entitlement anywhere in the country.

Migrants are often given the toughest, most hazardous or socially-looked-down-on jobs: work on construction sites, clearing waste or working as lowly-paid domestic help or security guards. Yet, their contribution to the economy and growth is immense. Estimates of remittances sent back home range from Rs 70,000 crore to Rs 1,20,000 crore every year. A state like Bihar gets 10% of its state GDP from remittances sent by its large migrant labour force. Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state and home to 200 million people and source of large-scale migration, could get as much as 4% of its GDP from its migrants.

As India continues down the path of diversification of economic structure and urbanisation, the number of migrants will go up. We need policies to create new towns and new paradigms of urban planning, to provide these builders of modern India something better than slums and ghettos to live in. But the first step towards institutional inclusion of migrants is Aadhaar. Expedite that.