India - Migration

Foreign investment

Economic reforms in the 1990s opened markets, attracting foreign direct investment. This has led to job creation and urban migration.

Outsourcing

Cities like Bengaluru have become global outsourcing centres, drawing skilled workers from across the country and abroad.

Urban opportunity

People migrate in hope of getting a higher wage and improving their quality of life.

India’s industrial policy has historically concentrated manufacturing in urban and peri-urban areas. These industrial clusters — from the textile mills of Mumbai to the automotive factories around Chennai — create thousands of jobs that attract rural workers seeking steady employment.

Better infrastructure

Improved connectivity, such as through transport, has made migrating to the city easier. Essential services largely absent from rural areas pull people to the city. Urban lifestyle is advertised as more attractive, offering not only economic opportunity, but social freedom and consumer choices. This has been driven by globalisation’s encouragement of consumerism to maximise profit margins.

Land fragmentation

Bihar is India’s least developed state. It is one of the examples of a region that has experienced land fragmentation.

Since liberalising in 1991, smaller farms have struggled to compete with an influx of corporate mega farms like those in America. Many small landholders to sell their properties and migrate to cities, where they hope to find more stable income opportunities.

Mechanisation

Resulted in a surplus rural workforce, with farmers and agricultural labourers finding themselves without sufficient work in their villages, pushing them to urban areas. For many rural families, this technological progress has paradoxically led to economic instability, pushing them to seek alternative livelihoods in urban areas.

Fewer obstacles

The improvement of transport links alongside the introduction of online banking and phone technology has reduced the amount of obstacles in migrating to and integrating into a city.

Dharavi population

Around 1 million people live in an area roughly 1 square mile.

Growing wealth leading to migration

Globalisation has opened new markets after reducing regulation in the 1990s, attracting FDI into urban India. GDP per capita has increased from around $300 in 1991, to around $3000 as of 2026:

• increased disparity between rural push and urban pull — increased rural-urban migration

Growing wealth inequality

1991 liberalisation lead to rich people capitalising on foreign investment into a growing private sector:

• accumulated wealth; occupied better areas

• growing population of urban poor forced into informal settlements

Housing pressure

Rural-to-urban migration increases gap between the demand and supply of housing. In 2011, 68 million Indians lived in slums.

Dharavi founding

In 1884 during the British colonial era, it developed due to the migration of rural Indians to urban Mumbai and has a thriving informal economy, producing goods like leather and pottery, with an estimated annual turnover exceeding $1 billion.

Dharavi water access

Derives from public standpipes stationed throughout the slum. With the limited lavatories they have, they are extremely filthy and broken down to the point of being unsafe.

Dharavi diseases

Mahim Creek is a local river that is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, causing the spread of contagious diseases. Due to the air pollutants, diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis, and asthma are common among residents.

Dharavi sewage

Children play in open sewers, and there is approximately 1 toilet per 1440 people to share, hence many inhabitants turn to the river as a substitute. Dharavi also has poor drainage systems, and the annual monsoons bring seasonal diseases.

Dharavi life expectancy

Overall, the health and hygiene conditions in Dharavi are perilous. As a result, the life expectancy in Dharavi is 7 years lower than the national Indian average.

Dharavi rate of disease contraction

4000 cases of various types of disease are reported everyday such as diarrhoea, malaria, and tuberculosis, and the hospitals treat 3000 patients a day, many of whom are children.

Dharavi modern health problems

Beyond sewage, there is also now heavy metals and toxic chemicals present in surrounding water, as there is no network to remove these. This can lead to serious health conditions, as chemicals such as mercury or DDT get into people’s systems.

Dharavi water pollution

The lack of clean water contributes to waterborne diseases, with high incidences of illnesses like diphtheria and typhoid.

Dharavi waste management issues

Mumbai generates approximately 7,500 metric tonnes of waste daily. Dharavi, being densely populated, faces severe waste management challenges. There is no comprehensive waste collection system, leading to littering and unsanitary conditions.

This results in sewage and toxic chemicals, such as mercury, getting into rivers and surrounding water networks, harming local ecosystems.

Dharavi waste management support group

Laxmi and several others form the recycling clan of Dharavi, and they are all part of Acorn Foundation (India), Mumbai, a registered charity trust.

Dharavi waste management support method

Hundreds of children, women and men collect dry waste from the streets, beaches and garbage dumps every day. They bring the waste to Dharavi, where it is sorted, segregated and then sold by the kilo to scrap dealers at various godowns.

Dharavi waste management support incentive

This waste can get them anywhere between 10 rupees per kilo for e-waste, to 12 rupees per kilo for plastic bottles, or 20 rupees per kilo per metals like copper from circuit boards.