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Ch. Prashanth Reddy

Hyderabad , Oct 7

WOMEN'S health and children's education are major casualties of migration of labour from villages to urban areas.

According to a study commissioned by the Programme Support Unit (PSU) of the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Programme (APRLP), most of the women migrants suffer from malaria and diarrhoea. While 15 per cent suffered from tuberculosis due to small and ill-ventilated tenements in urban areas, 70 per cent reported skin diseases and rashes. Lack of privacy, absence of toilet facilities, abuse and harassment by contractors and long working hours are taking a toll of their health.

Similarly, the study states that education of children suffered the most on account of migration. Cost, distance, joining in mid-academic year and language were the main constraints for migrant children to attend school in the urban areas. More often than not, these children, who migrate with their parents in November, come back to their villages in June and have to rejoin the same class. Consequently, high drop out rates are reported. In case of children left behind in villages, many of them rarely go to school and grow up as illiterates.

Glocal Research & Consultancy Services, which conducted the study at the instance of APRLP, made a field survey in 16 villages of 10 mandals of Mahabubnagar district and 15 villages in 10 mandals of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh to understand the broad pattern of migration in the two drought-prone areas. Besides, it has carried out an intensive fieldwork in four sample villages, two each in both the districts that have a tradition of migration.

The study also revealed that migration, as a livelihood strategy has been a regular feature among the people inhabiting the two districts. Poverty induced distress migration is a dominant form prevalent. Hence, during a severe drought year like 2002-03, large groups of people had migrated. The estimates of migrant households, in the four sample villages, ranged from 79 per cent to 23 per cent. On the whole, 578 households out of a total of 1380 in the four villages migrated.

The study states that migration is an extra burden on women in terms of both doing labour work as well as household work at the destination place. In addition to this, there is psychological stress about work, children at home and health. Malnutrition, irregular diets and health problems are common among migrant women.

On the positive side, migration had helped certain people to meet the basic consumption expenditure, repay debts, improve their skills and accumulate some money. As per the policy interventions from the Government, the study recommended, among other things, issue of identity cards to the migrants, provision of legal assistance, improving access to credit, imparting technical skills, increasing the number of old age and widow pensions in villages, education of migrants on their legal rights and entitlement through mass media and systematic dissemination of employment opportunities in urban areas both in formal and informal sectors by Mandal Revenue Officers and Mandal Development Officers.

At the destination place, the study seeks issue of temporary ration cards to the migrants, creation of legal cells for providing legal assistance, construction of public lavatories in the cities and arrangement of mobile teachers in places where there is high incidence of migration, particularly inter-State migration.

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