One in every three Indians is a migrant — at home

The size of international migration is much smaller. The number of foreigners living in India is only about 59 lakh,or approximately 0.5 per cent of population,down from about 94 lakh in 1960. The number of Indians living abroad is about 90 lakh.

This trend manifests itself throughout the world as has been brought out in the latest Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This year’s report,which focuses on migration,estimates that nearly one billion of the world’s 6.7 billion people — or one in every seven person — is a migrant. Of these,an overwhelming number,about 740 million,are internal migrants and only 214 million are those who have changed their country of residence.

The HDR report calls it a healthy trend. “For many people in the developing countries moving away from their home town or village can be the best — sometimes the only — option to improve their life chances. Human mobility can be hugely effective in raising a person’s income,health and education prospects. But its value is more than that: being able to decide where to live is a key element of human freedom,” it says.

The report busts a number of myths. Like the fact,that only a small proportion — fewer than 70 million of the 214 million international migrants — move from a developing country to a developed one. Most of the international migrants move from one developing country to another or between developed countries.

In the case of India,72 per cent of people leaving the country move to some other country within Asia. About 15 per cent migrate to North America,close to ten per cent to Europe and only 1.7 per cent to Africa.

The report reveals that regardless of where the people move,a majority of migrants,including ones who move within the country,end up making large gains in incomes. The gains are much more in case of people moving from a less developed country to a highly developed one. The report cites the example of Indian software engineers whose incomes in 1990s was less than 30 per cent of their counterparts in the United States. “So those who were able to relocate to this country,reaped large gains,” it says.

The migrant population also is a healthy economic asset for the place of his or her origin — the state or the country that he or she has left behind. The Indian emigrant population for example,sent back $35,262 million in remittances in 2007,which was about 3.1 per cent of the country’s GDP and about 1.5 times the foreign direct investment received that year.

The report also estimates that about 500,000 people in India are internally displaced due to conflict or insecurity-related situations. It,however,says that this figure was ‘suspected to be an underestimate’.

India continues to languish at a lowly 134th position in the Human Development Index trends,the same position that it occupied last year. Countries like Bhutan,Sri Lanka,Botswana and even the Palestinian Territories offer a better quality of life. China ranks 92nd on the list while Pakistan is at number 141. The positions of the top five countries in the list — Norway,Australia,Iceland,Canada and Ireland — remain unchanged from last year.