A recent report shows that Delhi receives the largest flow of migrants anywhere in urban India.
NEW DELHI: While many of Maharashtra's parochial politicians have made a living out of bashing north Indian immigrants, Mumbai is not the city with the highest influx of migrants. A recent report shows that Delhi receives the largest flow of migrants anywhere in urban India. Delhi as a city, excluding the rest of the NCR, had more migrants than any other state in the country.
According to a recent report by the Indian Institute of Human Settlement (IIHS), the two largest streams of migration to urban India are from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and from Bihar to Delhi. Each of these streams consists of over 3 lakh people.
IIHS studied the 2001 census, the National Sample Survey (2007-08), and preliminary data from the 2011 census (migration data for census 2011 has not yet been released).
Ironically, Delhi is still not as cosmopolitan as metros such as Mumbai, where less than 50% of the population speaks Marathi and Bangalore, where less than half speak Kannada.
IIHS director Aromar Revi attributes the high flow of migrants into Delhi to the fact that it has the highest per capita income and income growth among Indian metros; a huge concentration of wealth, resources, infrastructure and a relatively high quality of urban services. "There are a large number of service sector jobs on offer in Delhi, increasingly in the informal sector" says Revi. Education is a big draw, as also health services when compared with many north Indian states.
That a large number of poor, so-called lower-caste migrants head to Delhi in search of a livelihood is obvious. But Mohammad Tarique, assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, puts forth a compelling argument for why many "upper-caste" folk migrate to Delhi. "The same caste system that inhibits lower castes from rising up the economic ladder prevents the upper castes from performing menial jobs to earn a living. The anonymity of cities like Delhi allows a Brahmin to work as a rickshaw-puller, whereas the caste hierarchy would make it hard for him to do so in his hometown, even if his family is starving," says Tarique.
Tarique believes that Delhi, though far from ideal for migrants, is more accommodating than other cities. "In addition to providing a large number of night shelters for the working homeless, Delhi is more accepting of migrants than cities like Mumbai, which are increasingly intolerant of them."
Contrary to perception, migration does not contribute to the increase in India's urban population as much as natural growth (people having children) does, says the IIHS report.
While the report says that the net rural to urban migration has marginally increased from 21.2% in 1991-2001 to 24.1% in 2001-11, and there has, simultaneously been a marginal decrease in natural growth over the last decade with people having less children, natural growth continues to contribute the most to the growth in urban population.
The elite often view migrants as a burden on the city's overstretched resources. But Unna Govindarajan of Janaagraha-a Bangalore-based organization that works towards improving the quality of life in India's cities-points out that the middle-class and elite depend heavily on poor migrants who provide them with the services needed to maintain their lifestyle. "While the elite need them (migrants) during the day, in the evening, they draw their curtains and forget about the inhuman living conditions of these very same people," she says.
"While a large proportion of Delhi's migrants work in the non-formal sector, Delhi's master plan assumes that the city can weed out the non-formal sector altogether. This, despite the fact that the city's economy is not prepared for such a shift," says KT Ravindran, a prominent architect and former president of the Institute of Urban Designers India.
Architect Gautam Bhatia rues the haphazard influx of both cars and people into cities like Delhi with little or no planning on how to accommodate them. "We can't say that everyone is welcome to our cities, as we do not have the services and infrastructure required to make them feel welcome," says Bhatia. For him, the latest data on the influx of migrants into Delhi simply means that the city is fast expanding with little care for what the population needs.
According to a recent report by the Indian Institute of Human Settlement (IIHS), the two largest streams of migration to urban India are from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and from Bihar to Delhi. Each of these streams consists of over 3 lakh people.
IIHS studied the 2001 census, the National Sample Survey (2007-08), and preliminary data from the 2011 census (migration data for census 2011 has not yet been released).
Ironically, Delhi is still not as cosmopolitan as metros such as Mumbai, where less than 50% of the population speaks Marathi and Bangalore, where less than half speak Kannada.
IIHS director Aromar Revi attributes the high flow of migrants into Delhi to the fact that it has the highest per capita income and income growth among Indian metros; a huge concentration of wealth, resources, infrastructure and a relatively high quality of urban services. "There are a large number of service sector jobs on offer in Delhi, increasingly in the informal sector" says Revi. Education is a big draw, as also health services when compared with many north Indian states.
That a large number of poor, so-called lower-caste migrants head to Delhi in search of a livelihood is obvious. But Mohammad Tarique, assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, puts forth a compelling argument for why many "upper-caste" folk migrate to Delhi. "The same caste system that inhibits lower castes from rising up the economic ladder prevents the upper castes from performing menial jobs to earn a living. The anonymity of cities like Delhi allows a Brahmin to work as a rickshaw-puller, whereas the caste hierarchy would make it hard for him to do so in his hometown, even if his family is starving," says Tarique.
Tarique believes that Delhi, though far from ideal for migrants, is more accommodating than other cities. "In addition to providing a large number of night shelters for the working homeless, Delhi is more accepting of migrants than cities like Mumbai, which are increasingly intolerant of them."
Contrary to perception, migration does not contribute to the increase in India's urban population as much as natural growth (people having children) does, says the IIHS report.
While the report says that the net rural to urban migration has marginally increased from 21.2% in 1991-2001 to 24.1% in 2001-11, and there has, simultaneously been a marginal decrease in natural growth over the last decade with people having less children, natural growth continues to contribute the most to the growth in urban population.
The elite often view migrants as a burden on the city's overstretched resources. But Unna Govindarajan of Janaagraha-a Bangalore-based organization that works towards improving the quality of life in India's cities-points out that the middle-class and elite depend heavily on poor migrants who provide them with the services needed to maintain their lifestyle. "While the elite need them (migrants) during the day, in the evening, they draw their curtains and forget about the inhuman living conditions of these very same people," she says.
"While a large proportion of Delhi's migrants work in the non-formal sector, Delhi's master plan assumes that the city can weed out the non-formal sector altogether. This, despite the fact that the city's economy is not prepared for such a shift," says KT Ravindran, a prominent architect and former president of the Institute of Urban Designers India.
Architect Gautam Bhatia rues the haphazard influx of both cars and people into cities like Delhi with little or no planning on how to accommodate them. "We can't say that everyone is welcome to our cities, as we do not have the services and infrastructure required to make them feel welcome," says Bhatia. For him, the latest data on the influx of migrants into Delhi simply means that the city is fast expanding with little care for what the population needs.
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