SYNOPSIS : REVERSE MIGRATION

Introduction 

• To understand reverse migration, first we need to understand what is migration? and what drives migration?
• Migration refers to movement of people from one place to another place affecting temporary change in residence of people.
• Migration generally has driven by push and pull factors, in which push factors includes lack of employment opportunities, lack of social and economic infrastructure, poverty, natural disasters, poor standard of living conditions which are generally found in rural areas whereas pull factors refers to the economic magnets where there is ample job opportunities, better social and economic infrastructure, better standard of living which generally found in urban areas.
• In general, migration happens from rural areas to urban areas.
• Reverse migration is opposite of migration where there is movement of people from urban areas to rural areas. In this scenario push and pull factors gets reversed. 

Current Scenario 

• Recently in the background of COVID-19 pandemic, India is witnessing rapid reverse migration where thousands of people are moving from urban places to their native places.
• There are thousands of migrant labourers who have been forced to take on unprecedented journey after a lockdown was imposed in the country to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic.
• By the crisil estimates, India has a workforce of 46.5 crore individuals. Of this, 41.5 crore individuals work in the informal sector of economy, where no social security benefits are available. This is why the lockdown has been so difficult for a large section of population.
• Many such individuals have been on the verge of running out of their saving which ultimately forces them to move out of towns and move towards their native places. 

Negative Impact 

• According to Mr. Santosh K Mehrotra, renowned professor of economics and author of recently launched book Reviving Jobs : An Agenda For Growth, the current reverse migration has set the country back by 15 years.
• Due to lockdown there is job loss especially in unorganised sectors which ultimately affects personal saving and disposable income of people working in these sectors.
• The joblessness scenario will drive millions of people in the trap perpetual poverty where they could not able to meet their basic needs for their survival.
• This will put high economic burden on the government exchequer which ultimately results into high fiscal costs and there might be rise in inflation due to scarcity of goods in the current scenario of lockdown.
• Sectors like construction and transportation has been badly affected due to lockdown and reverse migration.

Suggestions 

• There has to be a holistic approach for the migrant labourers and stress should be given on the rural economy.
• This was an opportune moment for the government to revive the rural economy where sectors like agriculture and allied industries should be given priority.

• It is also high time to revamp schemes like MGNREGA and reallocate the budget by considering one block as a unit and generate employment block wise as it will help many villages.
• The government should also bring in  a road-map of how they are going to employ such large number of migrants who have returned to their hometowns.
• A database of all the returning migrants should be made and jobs should be provided to them on that basis.