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The movement of daily wage earners and labourers has been cited in most research texts and studies as a “reverse migration” at best, or still worse, likened to the annual circular or seasonal migration seen in India. This study debunks all such theories and seeks to establish the same as distress migration caused as a result of the sudden lockdown imposed by the Indian government and the mishandling of the situation by the administration. This study is a systematic review that has researched existing studies on migration during the pandemic. Using content from news reports and selected studies it exposes the conditions before, during and after the lockdown and the mishandling of the situation on part of the administration that resulted in the massive migrant exodus. This distress migration was affected in response to the manufactured dystopia created by the sudden lockdown and other conditions during the first wave of COVID-19. It also cites data and facts to support the same. According to data estimates, in the quarter prior to the lockdown, 182 million individuals either had employment or were looking for work, and during the lockdown, 7 million people left the labour force. The study establishes that it was indeed distress migration, and not circular or reverse migration, stoked by wrong decisions of a sudden lockdown and manufactured dystopia which resulted in thousands of migrants walking back to their homes for want of any conveyance. Laws that could have been invoked to manage the situation are either defunct or were ignored. While establishing the conditions that led to this distress migration through a systematic review of several studies and also factual content drawn from news report and analysis curated from the period, the study concludes by creating a framework for the future, and suggesting policy measures such as the need for a National Draft Policy on migration, Annual Migrant Survey and a pa-India Migrant Smart Card to keep track of the movement of migrants from one state to another.

Distress migration is a socio-economic issue which has perennially attracted the attention of policy makers, planners, researchers and the media all along. Besides some other anomalies, the most backward KBK region of Odisha has been witnessing the problem of distress/forced migration for quite a long time now. The standard socio-economic theorizing has pinned on the dominant presence and applicability of the traditional push-pull hypothesis in explaining the very nucleus of the problem. But of late, the behavioural dimensions of migration decision making has started staring at the archaic push-factor dominated hypothetical undertone. Moving deep into the core of the monster brings forth the inherent presence of behavioural factors like emotions, cognitive biases, perception-based exclusions and own identity in the overall societal structure of the probable migrants. This study has adopted a direct interview method of collection of primary data from the Balangir district and has used various statistical methods like descriptive statistics, info-graphic analysis of the problem, rank analysis, emotional intelligence scale of measurement, logistic regression and so on to disentangle the behavioural factors influencing the decision to migrate. The study also includes one section on the quantitative beneficial impacts of distress migration in the same study area i.e. the KBK region of Odisha.

Consequent upon loss of employment and income due to frequent incidence of droughts, the marginal farmers, land less agricultural labourers and the poverty-stricken weaker sections of population migrate to developed regions in search of employment as a survival strategy. Trickle Up, as a part of its commitment towards reduction of extreme poverty, has been implementing the ‘graduation model’ 1 in many countries in Asia. In Odisha, since the year 2015, TU, in collaboration with Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM), has been operating the graduation model at Bangomunda block in Balangir district (Odisha) to mitigate distress migration among the ultra-poor households. 2 An attempt has been made in this study to analyse the socio-economic impact of TU–OLM intervention of programmes on distress migrants in western Odisha.

Novel Coronavirus disease and the resulting lockdown has created a unique situation of involuntary return migration among labourers in India. It provided a stage for conducting a retrospective study to analyse determinants of return behaviour among internal migrants upon their return. The aim of the paper is to carry out an empirical verification of socio-economic profile of migrant workers, information about destination, determinants of return migration, and future aspirations of the return migrants. Based on a telephonic semi-structured open-ended questionnaire-based survey conducted in February and March 2021 among 238 non-returnees and return migrants of Sonitpur District of Assam, we found that four states from South India, namely-Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, are the most attractive destinations for migrants from Sonitpur. The bulk of the migrants are young, unmarried men with minimal education, and majority come from households with no cultivable land. About 30% of the returnees went back to their previous destinations within a year, while a sizable portion of non-returnees are willing to return. Not all migrants returned home during pandemic. After controlling for all variables, it was revealed that the percentage of income sent as remittances, the availability of a job card by migrants' households, status of family migration, income, and the number of working days per week are all significantly related to migrants' decision to return. We suggest a hypothesis based on the observations that during times of crisis, migrants with other economic options at sources, such as a job card, are more likely to return.

We convey responses from migrant-sending households in western Odisha from interviews on migration conducted during the lockdown. The majority of migrants are indigenous (referred to as Scheduled Tribes or STs in India), come from very poor households and have little or no education. Prior to the lockdown, the majority of migrants engaged in seasonal, temporary migration—working in dangerous, informal, low-skilled odd jobs for low wages for a few months to supplement incomes at home the rest of the year. Lack of local employment alternatives is cited as the primary reason behind migration. After the lockdown, in the absence of income from migration, households with former migrants hope to earn a livelihood locally—with assistance from National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), India’s public works program. Besides providing employment, NREGA works can include physical and health infrastructure which improve connectivity of health workers. NREGA works can also include community assets, such as facilities for irrigation, rainwater harvesting and plantations as well as child-care centers under India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program. We posit that in the long run, this can improve health, education levels and livelihoods of the local communities, addressing not only the immediate need for local employment but also distress migration in the future.

A qualitative study conducted among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh provides empirical confirmation of two types of adverse consequence that frequently occur following distress migration: harsh and exclusionary host state policies, and exacerbation of power inequities (and related abuse) within the refugee community. This article describes research that explored the circumstances of female Rohingya refugees living in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing genocidal violence in Myanmar. The refugees describe harsh gendered aspects of their forced displacement, including limited access to needed protection and services as well as intra-community hardships exacerbated by the impact of displacement and segregation. Both sets of outcomes constitute preventable human rights violations that require redress.

Bundelkhand region of central India, a major drought affected area of the country is associated to high level of rural to urban migration. The present study was conducted to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the migrants and to examine the key factors triggering migration decision of agriculture practicing households. The region was facing drought for the fourth consecutive period which had left the population, mainly dependent on agricultural income, out of option than migration. The analysis of socio-economic profile of migrants showed that majority of the migrants were between the age group of 20–39 (70.1%) and the education level was secondary (54.8%). The population of female migrants was comparatively low, as many of them followed their family to the migrating place after marriage. Majority of the migrants (81.73%) were engaged in unskilled manual labour activities like construction works in destination cities. The various factors identified triggering migration decision were associated to livelihood security, climatic, agricultural, institutional and socio-cultural factors.

Based on a primary survey of 400 households from the Mayurbhanj and Jajpur districts of Odisha, this article finds that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is playing an important role in the agricultural slack seasons by providing job opportunities to needy poor and socially marginalised groups. In this process, it controls a substantial portion of seasonal distress out-migration from this region. The improved household earnings during the lean seasons also cause an improvement in the household consumption level, which has implications for the overall socio-economic development of the rural region. Key Words: Employment Guarantee, Distress Migration, Households living conditions and Rural Poverty

There has been a history of continuity of permanent migration of an entire ethnic community from one pocket of settlement to another in order to escape the obnoxious obligation of undue taxes and dues imposed by the warring semifeudal lords and monastic organizations in Bhutan. Annual seasonal circulation of yak and cattle herders between the sub-tropical and temperate zones across the northern-southern axis has been observed since the nineteenth century. The phenomenon of permanent region-to-region internal rural-urban migration of citizenship-card-holding native people has however picked up in the course of the last two decades. The phenomenon of step migration of mostly disguisedly rural employed family members, lowly itinerant workers and petty shopkeepers and also the well-off innovative entrepreneurs, first to the border town of Phuentsholing and subsequently to the capital town of Thimphu, has been reported in the comprehensive enumeration of population and housing of the Census 2005. It is safe to hypothesize that the increasing rate of outmigration and negative net migration resulting in the loss of population in the eastern region has been an indicator of the distress nature of mobility rather than one of innovative type. In this backdrop, the official claims regarding happiness of people are more of an inference and less of a reality.

Increasingly, research seeks to understand how environmental distress motivates migration, often focusing on the importance of singular events such as flood, drought or crop loss. This article explores the case of a Cambodian community where environmental shocks have been frequent over the past decade and international migration has increased. It shows that as a result of recurring and varied environmental shocks, households increasingly perceive agriculture-based livelihood strategies as unwise and risky. This perception is widespread even among households not directly experiencing income loss. As a result, households use migration as a replacement for local livelihood strategies. These findings support two arguments relevant for future research and policy. First, that environmental shocks have importance beyond their immediate, direct impact. Second, that recurring shocks can influence preferences for and risk perceptions of local investments. Thus for policies to effectively address environmental vulnerability and/or rural development in precarious environments, they must incorporate local understandings of risk and possibility.

This paper attempts to study the role of MGNREGS in improving the household living standards and it impact on seasonal distress out-migration, conducting a primary survey of 400 households from Mayurbhanj and Jajpur districts of Odisha during 2011-12. The major findings suggest that MGNREGS has contributed enormously in creating job opportunities for the needy poor and socially backward households. The accessibility of NREGS prevented huge number of distress seasonal out migration and brought financial autonomy for the landless poor (Below Poverty Line) and socially backward (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) households through regular wage income. This helped them to come out of hunger and debt traps, and hence an improved living standard. Therefore, the government should take proper measures to continue this programme in rural areas and allocate the resources based on demands calculation to avoid wastage of funds. Furthermore, an attempt should be made to create inter-industry linkages within rural regions through this programme that could generate a set of economic multipliers; and hence will provide sustainable source of rural employments and income generation to the socially and economically marginalized groups in India.

Based on the preceding discussion, two broad international policy directions need to be advanced as priority measures. The first of these consists of actions that reduce the climatic triggers for distress migration, while the second consists of actions that build greater capacity within vulnerable populations to adapt to extreme climatic events and conditions.