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UP bags the top slot as an emigrant factory
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 30 December 2010, 23:49 IST
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh has bagged the top slot quietly from Kerela in sending the maximum number of people abroad for work. This clearly shows that India has undergone a demographic shift and every state has an equal potential.
According to the statistics, 1.25 lakh people were sent by Uttar Pradesh for work abroad in 2009 as against 1.19 lakh that took the flight out of Kerala, as stated by the ministry of overseas Indian affairs. 2010 recorded a similar kind of trend with UP registering 68,375 emigrants until June, as compared with 45,278 from Kerala.
To Bihar and Rajasthan, the three other southern states -Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka that were in the top bracket are also at the risk of losing their rankings. "Several migrants from Kerala, who do manual jobs, do not need emigration check because they are graduates," said State Planning Board member KN Harilal, an official in Kerela. Kerela was the biggest contributor to the $55 billion India received in remitted money in 2010, the most by any country in the world.
According to the 2001 census, UP is India's most populated state with 166.2 million people, 31.15 percent of which live below the poverty line. The state's rate of population growth is 25.8 percent, as against the national average of 21.3 percent. UP ranks 26th in literacy rate among 30 states and union territories surveyed. Kerala, which is home to 31.84 million people, is counted among the prosperous Indian states with only 12.72 percent of its population below the poverty line.
Dr. S Irudaya Rajan, migration expert and a professor at Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies agrees. "In Kerala, construction workers and masons are now coming from other states, like Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, because Kerala does not have enough people to work on its projects," Dr Rajan said.
In 2005, just 9,366 people left Bihar to work abroad. But in four years, this figure touched 50,227. Rajasthan, which had recorded 21,899 emigrants in 2005, saw the figure go up to 44,744 by 2009.