Migration in India is slowing, reduced by 11.78 percent in 2023: PM advisory body report

Titled as “400 Million Dreams!”, the PM advisory body used three datasets- Indian Railway Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) data on passenger volumes; mobile telephone subscribers roaming data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and district level banking data on remittances to come up with this new figure on migration.

However, it also said that this method can give a general idea about the trend and accuracy of the findings can only be checked after the decennial Census.

“This paper is an attempt to address the issue of timeliness of availability of data for analysing trends in domestic migration especially that of blue collar migration (movement of working-class individuals). While the decennial Census provides comprehensive and granular migration data, however on account of its periodicity, there remains a significant lag by the time the data can be analysed,” reads the report, authored by economist Bibek Debroy, who was chairman of EAC-PM, and Devi Prasad Misra, an IRS officer presently posted as Director in the council.

“Similarly, household surveys capturing data on domestic migration, are restricted by the size of their dataset and have limits in building source-destination dyads, seasonal trends, event study on trends in migration etc.,” reads the report further.

The paper also hypothesized that migration in India is slowing because of improved economic opportunities in smaller cities.

“We hypothesize that this is on account of availability of improved services such as education, health, infrastructure and connectivity as well as improved economic opportunities in or near major sources of migration and is an indicator of overall economic growth,” reads the paper.

According to the study, the top origin districts are coalesced around major urban agglomerations viz. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata etc.

The composition of the top five recipient States attracting migrants (all migrants including intra-State migrants) has changed. West Bengal and Rajasthan are the new entrants and while Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are now ranked a notch lower. Other three states in this top-5 list are UP, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

“West Bengal, Rajasthan and Karnataka are the States showing the maximum amount of growth in percentage share of the arriving passengers. Similarly, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are States where the percentage share of total migrants has reduced. Mumbai, Bengaluru Urban, Howrah, Central Delhi, Hyderabad are the districts attracting most migrant arrivals, while Valsad, Chittoor, Paschim Bardhaman, Agra, Guntur, Villupuram and Saharsa are the top origin districts,” reads the report.

The authors used TRAI roaming data to identify the seasonality of the movement of migration. “We find that April-June is the high month for movement with November-December witnessing secondary highs. These are perhaps months where most migrant labour travel back to their places of origin,” reads the paper.

It also said that even prior to the pandemic related lockdowns, there were signs of the passenger movement showing little growth, however after the pandemic, even the high months i.e. Apr-May are at a distinctly lower level as compared to the corresponding period before the pandemic – passenger levels for May 2023 being 6.67% lower than the corresponding number for May 2012.

While there are other reports like Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI)’s Migration in India 2020-21 or the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) Report of the Working Group On Migration (2017), to be able to track the volume, direction and trends in migration on a regular basis remains a challenge.