Centre for Development Studies, Working Paper 433, July, Trivandrum, India Vijay Korra (2010)

The examination of the phenomenon of rural migration in a village in Andhra Pradesh, India reveals that out-migration from the village occurred primarily in bid for survival and coping with indebtedness and other vulnerabilities.

Migration has long been a strategy for securing better livelihoods in developing countries. Studies have shown that migration of workforce in rural regions occurs under varying conditions. Regional disparity in terms of development within a country creates the situation where one stands to gain by migrating in search of better jobs. While rural-to-urban migration can occur due to better opportunities, compared to agriculture, in centers of fast development, it can also be triggered by distress in agriculture and lack of employment within the village economy. The latter type of migration is usually characterized by adverse working conditions and poor wages in the destinations.
           
Migration from rural areas in India has always been an important economic strategy but the more recent experiences reveal an escalation in the magnitude of seasonal circulation of labour across regions. Rural-to-rural migration, driven by the precipitating agrarian crisis, severe in certain regions, is also a newer phenomenon that can be observed in the economic reforms period.  
           
In this context, Korra examines the various dimensions and dynamics of migration in the Akkaram village in Andhra Pradesh, India. The village is located in the Achampet mandal (block) in the Mahabubnagar district, which is close to Hyderabad, the state capital. The agro-climatic character of the village is that of dryland agriculture with sandy soil and low irrigation. Only 13 percent of the total cultivable land in the village is irrigated. The major economic activity is cotton cultivation along with some growing of rice, jowar (sorghum) and pulses. The notable feature of the village, which makes it an interesting case for studying migration, is that agricultural work is available in the village only for six months from June to November, largely due to the rain-fed nature of cultivation.
           
The study uses a census survey of the 200 households in the village to examine the characteristics of the migrants as well as to analyse the forms of migration, wages, working conditions and expenditure patterns of migrants’ earnings. Of the total population of 1015 persons in the villages, 431 (42.4 percent) people reported migrating in 2006, the survey year. Although, the study does not report the exact size of the work-force in the village, it is clear from this figure that the proportion of the work-force that migrates is exceptionally high. Among the households, 114 (57 percent) reported migration during this time. Interestingly more than half of the migrants were female.
           
The larger share of migrants (62 percent) headed for urban destinations, mainly Hyderabad. The major occupation in which these migrants went into was as labour in construction, while some worked as brick-makers, factory labour and auto-rickshaw drivers. On the other hand, migrants heading for rural destinations (38 percent) went for cotton and chilli-picking activity in neighbouring districts of Nalgonda and Guntur, where the extent of irrigated agriculture was higher. Nearly 60 percent of rural-to-rural migrants were female, while the trend amongst males was more to migrate to urban areas for higher-paid work. However, it should be noted that even among female migrants more than half (nearly 57 percent) migrated to urban areas; for males, this figure was 67.5 percent.
           
The analyses of migrant households by their land-ownership reveal that access to land is not a major factor behind migration. While the landless and marginal land-owners almost surely migrated, the phenomenon is also prevalent among small and medium land-owners. On the other hand, the survey reveals that 67 percent of households, with main occupation as cultivators, did not migrate. This indicates that the ownership of agricultural assets, like pumps and tube-wells, which enhance productivity in agriculture, was more important than mere land-ownership in determining whether a household migrated or not. Though the study directly does not investigate this, it is clear that the general low productivity of land and lack of access to vital capital-inputs required for cultivation caused households with access to land also to migrate for employment.
           
The information on migrants’ wages and working conditions points towards the distress-driven nature of migration. The rural migrants, engaged in cotton and chilli- picking in destinations, earned around Rs. 40-50 per day, at a piece rate of Rs. 2 per kg of cotton/chilli picked. This was actually worse or at best equal to the wages that they received in their own village (Rs. 50 per day). On the other hand, the urban migrants received a higher wage of Rs. 100 to 120 in construction or brick making, though here there was gender wage discrimination. Skilled/semi-skilled migrants like auto-rickshaw drivers earned Rs. 200/300 per day but they were fewer in number.

Working hours, including that for preparing food for oneself, was as high as 12-14 hours for both rural and urban migrants, though living conditions were often worse for the latter. The expenditure patterns of the migrants earnings also re-confirm the vicious cycle of distress that the migrants live in. The bulk of their earnings were spent on subsistence consumption, repay debts, marriages and health. Seldom, there is any investment in agriculture or non-agricultural productive equipments. In fact, the cycle of migration is closely linked with a stringent cycle of indebtedness to usurious moneylenders as the couple of case-studies revealed.

The study notes that the majority of the migrants was poor and caught in cycles of indebtedness. The poor wages and working/living conditions that the migrants negotiate in destinations bear testimony to the distress-triggered nature of migration and persisting vulnerabilities of the migrants. The author concludes that there is an urgent need of public policies to redress the agricultural stagnation in the origins of migration as well as policies that ensure better wages and work conditions for migrants in destinations.