Migration in Darbha Block of Bastar District (Chhattisgarh): A Study

“It is an explosive situation in India today as far as agriculture is concerned and the farmers are concerned, with the employment rates in rural areas being the lowest since the late 1990s. We keep hearing about huge displacements due to dam-building or canal-digging, but let me tell you the biggest displacement is in agriculture where the largest mass migration in the history is beginning to unfold, following displacement of people from their land…”

P. Sainath, 'India's brave New World: the Agrarian crisis, farm Suicides and the Wages of Inequality,' hosted by the South Asian Journalists' Association in New york.

A large number of educated, uneducated and illiterate tribal women from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal migrate to different parts of the country. Metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are their main destinations. They search for gainful employment as casual labour in the unorganized sector or as household maids for their livelihood. They are often exploited physically and sexually..

There is not enough data available to analyze and understand migration, particularly among women tribals, the regional and seasonal variations, the different types and forms of migration such as inter-state cross-migration, circular migration, occupational migration, short-term migration, long-term migration, migration caused by displacement and gender migration. The reasons for this exodus need to be studied in detail, especially because a large number of development programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Jawahar Rojgar Yojana (JRY), the Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS), the Food For Work Programme (FFW), the Prime Minister Gramin Swarojgar Yojana (PMGSY) and the Swarna Jayanti Gramin Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) have all been introduced to address the issue of migration.