Migrants missing from Centre’s funding thrust

Aug 20, 2024 08:56 PM IST

The draft National Youth Policy (2021) reserves a special focus on the migrant youth workforce and recognises them as a separate and significant youth category. Therefore, skilling, reskilling, and upskilling these migrant youth will keep them attuned to the changing needs of industry, improve employment opportunities, and enhance their bargaining power.

In the post-pandemic period, a unique programme for the skilling of migrants impacted by the pandemic was launched under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). Short-term training under this programme was based on migrants’ demands. By the end of 2021, 1.21 lakh migrants had been trained.

The budget this year allocated ₹1.48 lakh crore specifically for education, employment, and skilling. Though the skilling of youth is a long-term investment and a key priority, continued focus on special programmes for the young migrant workforce in the government’s funding decisions is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the silence on migrants in this year’s Union government outlays is disappointing. In the future, PMKVY might undertake a few skilling programmes for migrants. However, a specific budgetary allocation would have provided migrants with robust support in terms of skill development.

Rural distress and poverty are prevalent in the country and ultimately force distress migration of poor rural households. The ministry of rural development has focused on multi-dimensional action such as the provision of improved infrastructural facilities, equitable dispersal of resources to remove regional disparities, employment generation, imparting of skills, encouraging entrepreneurial activity, undertaking land reforms, enhancing literacy, and providing easy access to financial assistance and credit facilities. However, it also needs solid budgetary support. A micro-analysis of the allocations of ₹2.66 lakh crore for the rural development and ₹1.52 lakh crore for the agriculture and allied sectors from migrants’ perspective shows the government may not have thought so. To illustrate, despite the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) playing a crucial role in enhancing the livelihood security of poor rural households, strengthening local employment, and, thereby reducing out-migration of rural and tribal youth, it didn’t find budgetary favour, with allocations plateauing at last year’s level. Another programme that has a salutary effect on reducing rural migration is the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM). This programme has helped empower women by mobilising them through self-help groups (SHGs). It did see an increase in outlay, but it remains to be seen if it proves enough to meet the challenge of effective implementation by identifying specific intersectional vulnerabilities among rural women and building capacity on non-traditional skills and entrepreneurship.

The government’s financial planning for this fiscal, surprisingly, completely overlooked the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM). The SPMRM focuses on cluster-based integrated development through spatial planning to reduce migration, and eventually facilitate reverse migration. In 2020, the NITI Aayog proposed a new and extended programme for over 1,000 clusters in the next three years. Such a significant programme remains unnoticed due to the lack of a special funding push.

The International Labour Organization warned earlier this year that the rates of urbanisation and migration in the country are expected to increase considerably in the future. India is expected to have a migration rate of around 40% in 2030 and an urban population of around 607 million, with the bulk of this increase attributable to migration. The government’s funding plans for the current fiscal should have served to signal an intent to address the specific challenges of this migration-driven urbanisation, but it remains largely silent on this. The government intends to empower every section of society. However, can this goal meet fruition if a significant proportion of the country’s human capital doesn’t seem to be on the radar of the government’s funding decisions?

S Irudaya Rajan is chair, and Kuldeepsingh Rajput is senior research fellow, International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), Kerala. The views expressed are personal