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Picture Courtesy: DOWNTOEARTH
Context
The Economic Survey 2025-26 highlights a critical developmental challenge: India's cities are reaching their saturation point and can no longer sustainably absorb the influx of rural migrants.
Migration is a socio-economic issue driven mainly by economic needs and social customs, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020–21 reporting the total migration rate at 28.9%.
Types of Migration:
Migration is driven by a combination of 'push' factors compelling people to leave rural areas and 'pull' factors attracting them to urban centers.
Push Factors (From Rural Areas)
Agrarian Distress: Low farm productivity, dependence on monsoons, debt, and land fragmentation.
Lack of Employment: High levels of disguised unemployment and limited non-farm job opportunities.
Infrastructure Deficit: Poor access to quality education, healthcare, and reliable electricity.
Environmental Stress: Climate change impacts like droughts and floods degrading agricultural land.
Social Factors: Caste-based discrimination and patriarchal norms limiting social mobility.
Pull Factors (Towards Urban Areas)
Economic Opportunities: Perception of higher wages and diverse job options in both formal and informal sectors.
Better Services: Access to superior education, advanced healthcare, and better public infrastructure.
Social Mobility: Greater anonymity, freedom from rigid social structures, and aspirations for a modern lifestyle.
Network Effect: Presence of relatives or community members who provide support and information to new migrants.
Impact of Migration
Impact on Urban Centers
Positive Impacts
Provides a steady supply of affordable labour for industries like construction, manufacturing, and services.
Contributes to economic growth by increasing demand and consumption.
Promote cultural diversity and dynamism.
Negative Impacts
Infrastructure Overload: Puts immense pressure on housing, sanitation, water supply, and transport.
Growth of Slums: Leads to the proliferation of informal settlements with poor living conditions. As per the 2011 Census, 65 million people lived in slums in India.
Environmental Degradation: Causes increased air and water pollution, and severe waste management challenges.
Social Tensions: Can lead to increased crime rates and competition for limited resources.
Impact on Rural Areas
Positive Impacts
Remittances: Migrants send money home, which reduces poverty, improves living standards, and is often invested in education and health. In FY25, India received the world's largest remittances, $135.46 billion, which supported rural households through international and internal migration. (Source: Economic Survey 2026).
Social Change: Exposure to urban norms and ideas help challenge traditional social hierarchies and empower women.
Reduced Pressure on Land: Out-migration eases the pressure on agricultural land and local resources.
Negative Impacts
"Feminization of Agriculture": Women are left to manage farms and households, increasing their workload without providing them ownership or decision-making power.
Brain and Labour Drain: Loss of the young, able-bodied workforce leads to labour shortages and hinders local development.
Social Disintegration: Can lead to the breakdown of the traditional family structure and loneliness for the elderly left behind.
Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM)
Mobilizes rural poor women into Self Help Groups (SHGs) for self-employment. The Kudumbashree program in Kerala is a highly successful model of this approach.
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY)
A placement-linked skill development program for rural youth. As of October 2025, 1.16 million out of 1.79 million trained candidates were placed, but challenges like skill mismatch remain. (Source: PIB)
Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs)
Provides entrepreneurship training to rural youth from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families to encourage self-employment.
One Nation, One Ration Card (ONORC)
The system ensures food security portability across the nation, allowing beneficiaries, especially migrants, to claim rations from any Fair Price Shop using biometric authentication.
The e-Shram portal established a National Database of Unorganised Workers (including migrants), registering over 30 crore workers and issuing them a 12-digit UAN on an e-Shram card to facilitate social security scheme delivery. (Source: PIB).
Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs)
A sub-scheme of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) aims to offer affordable rental housing near workplaces for migrant workers and the urban poor to mitigate the housing crisis and slum growth.
Outdated Poverty Data: Policy targeting is hampered by the lack of updated official poverty estimates, with reliance on outdated BPL metrics.
Urban-Centric Skilling: Most high-quality skill development and higher education centers are located in cities, forcing youth to migrate for training itself.
Insufficient Livelihood Diversification: The focus remains on basic skilling and SHGs, which may not match the income levels or career aspirations offered by urban jobs.
Promote the 'Rurban' Model: Bridge the rural-urban divide by developing village clusters with urban amenities, infrastructure, and economic opportunities, as planned under the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission.
Decentralize Key Infrastructure: Establish high-quality educational institutions and advanced skill training centers within rural areas to retain youth and attract talent.
Boost the Rural Non-Farm Economy: Shift focus beyond agriculture to promote rural MSMEs, food processing, tourism, and handicrafts with targeted credit and market linkages.
Strengthen Local Governance: Empower Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) with more funds and functional autonomy to enable bottom-up, need-based development planning.
Adopt a National Migration Policy: A comprehensive policy is needed to protect migrants' rights in cities (access to housing, healthcare, social security) while simultaneously investing in the development of source regions.
Learn from Global Models: China's Rural Revitalization Strategy offers a holistic model that aims to modernize agriculture, close the urban-rural income gap, and improve rural living standards to create a more balanced development.
Sustainable rural-urban migration management demands a paradigm shift: investing in rural infrastructure, livelihood diversification, and community empowerment to make migration a choice, not a necessity.
Source: DOWNTOEARTH
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PRACTICE QUESTION Q. Account for the 'dying' state of agriculture as a primary driver of rural-urban migration. Suggest measures to make farming an attractive livelihood. (250 words) |
The primary drivers are economic disparities, limited non-farm jobs in villages, decline of the agrarian economy, and the "pull" of better education, healthcare, and social mobility in cities.
It leads to strained infrastructure (housing, water, sanitation), proliferation of slums, environmental degradation like increased pollution, and socio-economic challenges for migrants who often work in the informal sector with no social security.
'Lakhpati Didi' is an initiative under the Deendayal Antyodyaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM). It aims to empower 3 crore women in Self-Help Groups (SHGs) to earn a sustainable income of at least ₹1 lakh per annum.
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