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Informist, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation plans to conduct a survey to determine migration rates in the country and the reasons for migration. The ministry aims to conduct the survey over a year starting July. Thursday, it released a draft schedule and questionnaire and sought feedback by Nov. 30.

 

"The forthcoming Survey on Migration is expected to provide comprehensive and up-to-date data on the extent and patterns of migration--both rural–urban and inter-state--along with reasons for migration, duration of stay, return migration, employment and income profiles of migrants, and the impact of migration on households left behind," the ministry said. "The results will be instrumental in understanding labour mobility, urbanisation trends, remittance flows, and the social and economic integration of migrant populations."

 

While the Census has been the principal source of migration data in India, the National Sample Survey, too, has captured migration trends through periodic sample surveys. The statistics office first collected migration data in its ninth round of the National Sample Survey during May–Aug 1955. More recently, data on migration was collected through the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2020–21 (Jul-Jun) and the Multiple Indicator Survey that took place from January 2020 till August 2021.

The ministry defines a migrant as a person who stayed in a village or town continuously for a period of six months or more but now resides in a different place. It also defines migrant households as those households where all members moved to a different village or town during the last 365 days.

 

The 64th round of the National Sample Survey showed that the proportion of households that migrated to rural areas during the last 365 days was very low, nearly 1 per cent. In urban areas, on the other hand, the households that migrated during the last 365 days constituted nearly 3 per cent of all urban households. The proposed migration survey will not collect information on household migration given the low incidence.

The proposed survey will also measure short-term migration, whose definition has been revised to "15 days or more but less than six months" from "one month or more but less than six months". This has been done to capture a larger share of short-term migration undertaken for employment purposes, the ministry said.  End

 

Reported by Shubham Rana

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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