Special to The Express: Will Punjab’s floods gradually restructure migration pathways?
Repeated floods are dismantling Punjab’s agrarian base, driving internal displacement, reversing labour flows, and turning overseas migration into a climate adaptation strategy.
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From 2020 to 2024, Punjab reported over 41,000 cases of flood-induced displacement—nearly 90 per cent of which occurred in 2023 alone. (PTI Photo)Written by Harleen Gill and Sehaj Singh
Floods in Punjab are no longer rare catastrophes. They have become recurring shocks that expose the vulnerability of land and livelihood systems. The great deluge of 1988, which submerged over 9,000 villages, was once seen as exceptional. But subsequent floods in 1993, 2019, 2023, and now in 2025 reveal a troubling pattern. Each disaster deepens livelihood insecurity and shows how agrarian communities are increasingly exposed to climate risk.
The composition of monetary losses over time provides a telling picture of this transformation. In the 1980s, about 46 per cent of losses were in housing, 20 per cent in crops, and 33 per cent in public infrastructure. By the 1990s, crop loss had risen to nearly 47 per cent.
In the 2000s, it surged to almost 72 per cent, while housing dropped below 5 per cent and infrastructure stood at 23 per cent. The trend has continued. Between 2020 and 2024, crop damage accounted for over 77 per cent of losses, housing for 15 per cent, and infrastructure just 8 per cent. This shift from structural damage to livelihood damage underscores how floods now erode the economic foundation of rural households rather than merely destroying physical assets.
The demographic fallout is already visible. From 2020 to 2024, Punjab reported over 41,000 cases of flood-induced displacement—nearly 90 per cent of which occurred in 2023 alone. These figures show that displacement is no longer a temporary episode tied to relief camps or kinship support. With repeated shocks, short-term coping gives way to permanent relocation as families realise that the economic and ecological basis for returning has weakened. Agricultural collapse is pushing households to seek stability elsewhere.
Migration becomes an adaptation strategy in this context—a way to diversify income and reduce exposure to climate risk. Initially, rural families displaced by floods turn to nearby towns for wage labour. However, Punjab’s towns are congested, characterised by informal housing, strained civic services, and precarious employment. Rather than destinations, they become transit points in a wider geography of mobility.
This process intersects with Punjab’s role as both a sender and receiver of migrants. The state has historically drawn workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana, with Census 2011 recording nearly 24 lakh interstate migrants. For these workers, floods create what might be called “displacement within displacement”.
Lacking land or social capital in Punjab, they are often excluded from relief and forced to return home. This reversal disrupts Punjab’s agricultural and industrial labour supply and burdens sending states.
International migration adds another layer. Punjab’s long-standing diasporic networks now serve as safety nets for families hit by repeated floods. The decision to send someone abroad increasingly reflects necessity rather than aspiration. Overseas migration becomes a climate adaptation strategy—a shift from opportunity-driven to compulsion-driven mobility.
Yet, Punjab remains largely absent from national analyses of climate-induced displacement, which tend to focus on coastal and eastern states. This is a serious oversight. A state central to India’s food security is itself becoming a site of climate-driven outmigration. India recorded 5.4 million internal displacements due to disasters in 2024, the highest in more than a decade, two-thirds triggered by floods. By 2050, over 45 million Indians could be displaced by climate disasters—three times current figures. Punjab’s floods must be understood within this broader trajectory.
The policy dilemma is clear: Will displacement be channelled into planned resettlement, or will it spiral into unregulated migration? Relief-centric approaches treating floods as episodic crises are inadequate. Punjab needs a structural response—flood-resilient infrastructure, targeted crop insurance for smallholders, livelihood diversification, and inclusive relief for interstate migrants. Without this, migration corridors will harden, stretching from villages to towns, to neighbouring states, and eventually abroad.
Punjab’s floods show that climate shocks are not just natural disasters; they are engines of socio-economic transformation. They are dismantling agrarian livelihoods, reversing labour migration, and accelerating overseas mobility. If left unaddressed, temporary dislocation will turn into permanent demographic change. Recognising this reality is the first step toward protecting not just Punjab’s land, but the people who depend on it.
(Harleen Gill teaches economics at SGGS College, Chandigarh, while Sehaj is co-founder of PANJ Foundation)
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