Workshop on "Planned Migration Support Initiative" held on 07th Aug 2012

Workshop on "Planned Migration Support Initiative" held on 07th Aug 2012 at Patna, Bihar by Jeevika, BRLPS

Brief Background:

Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) is an independent society set up by the Government of Bihar . The BRLPS is implementing JEEViKA - Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) with the objective of enhancing the social and economic empowerment of the rural poor in Bihar. 

Government of Bihar (GoB) has designated BRLPS as State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) for implementation of  NRLM in Bihar. The mission of NRLM is “to reduce poverty by enabling the poor households to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting  in appreciable increase in their incomes, on a sustainable basis through building strong grassroots institutions of the poor. These institutions enable and empower the  poor households to build-up their human, social, financial and other resources,  solidarity, voice and bargaining power. They,  in turn, enable them to access their  rights, entitlements and opportunities.” JEEViKA under NRLM plans to train and provide placement to 15 Lakh youths in a period of 10 years. 

About the Workshop:

Looking into the magnitude of the problem, a workshop “Planned Migration Support Initiative” was organized by BRLPS to address the issue of migration in Bihar. Many organization / agencies from across the country working on the issue of migration presented their initiatives and proposed model for Bihar to deal with migration.  

To tackle this issue and develop a strategy to deal with migration, partnership would be done with NGOs / organizations working on similar issues, agencies providing training and placement facility to youths in rural areas and concern government departments.

The participants/speakers include:

1. Shri Amrit Lal Meena, Principal Secretary, Labour, GoB 
2. Ms. Meera Shenoy, Consultant, World Bank
3. Mr. Arvind Chaudhary, CEO, BRLPS
4. Ms. Anjali Boarhade, Founder, Disha Foundation, Nasik
5. Mr. Umi Daniel, Migration thematic head, Aid-et-action, Bhubaneshwar
6. Mr. Santosh Poonia, Aajeevika Bureau
7. Ms. Rukmini Tankha, Project Officer, Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO
8. Mr. Debashish, Aga Khan Foundation
9. Mr. Gopal Garg, Vice President, Youth 4 Jobs and Consultant Jeevika, BRLPS
10. Other NGOs  Prayas, Nidhan, SPUR, etc.,
11. Industry Representatives: Mr. Shalabh Srivastava, Matrix Clothing; Orient Craft; etc., 

 

(From L-R: Mr. Arvind Chaudhary, Mr. Amrit Lal Meena, Ms. Meera Shenoy)

 
 

(BRLPS Team, Workshop Participants & Speakers)

 
 

(Workshop speakers: Ms. Anjali, Ms. Rukmini, Umi Daniel)

 

Reasons of Migration

Search of new and/or better employment has been one of the most important reasons for migration of workers. In fact more than two third of the migrants gave ‘search for employment’ and ‘better wage’ as the primary reason of their migration. However, there are also various other socio-economic reasons, which contribute to large scale exodus of population from the region (Table 6).

Here we have also identified the reasons for migration and, with a particular end in mind, for how long a migrant stays away from the village. Although marriage has been one of the most important reasons of migration, particularly in case of females, this has been kept out of our analysis in order to focus on non-voluntary causes of migration. Some of the reasons for migration identified during the course of data collection, were employment (on hired basis), better wages, self employment, study, avoiding factionalism within the village, accompanying with migrating family, job transfer, etc.

Table 6: Percentage Distribution of Migrants for different Time Periods by Reasons of Migration

	Months away after migration
	Up to 3 months	4 to 6 months	7 to 9 months	More than 9 months	Duration not specified	Total
Reasons of migration
in search of employment	42.63	42.74	44.85	31.00	42.59	38.69
for better wage	49.84	49.67	33.22	27.57	44.44	38.23
for self employment	0.94	1.71	2.16	3.92	1.85	2.55
study	0.94	0.19	0.33	1.06	1.85	0.65
fight/tension in the village		0.09	0.66	3.92	9.26	1.78
follow/accompany family	1.88	1.90	6.48	3.18		3.20
got job/transfer of job	2.19	3.32	10.96	27.16		13.55
Others	1.57	0.38	1.33	2.20		1.35
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Industrial Development in Bihar

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (Assocham) has proposed to partner Bihar government to develop 14 industrial clusters for an estimated cost of Rs. 450 crore for employment and revenue generation.

Assocham General Secretary D.S. Rawat said on Sunday that the proposed clusters will provide jobs to 6 lakh people, directly and indirectly.

Mr. Rawat, who was talking to reporters here after releasing the Assocham’s study report on ‘Cluster Development for Inclusive Growth in Bihar’, said the 14 proposed industrial clusters have a capacity of about 25,000-28,000 units with each providing jobs to 8-10 people.

He said the State government will also benefit from the development of the proposed industrial clusters in terms of both revenue and employment generation.

The 14 proposed industrial clusters will be located at Patna, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Barauni, Muzaffarpur, Katihar, Madhepura, Bhagalpur, Munger, Nawada, Supaul, Gaya, Bhojpur and Hajipur (Vaishali), the Assocham office bearer said.

The study suggests the State government to constitute a statutory body ‘Cluster Development Authority’ to look after the industrial activities in Bihar to be set up under industrial clusters, he said.

In order to give impetus to industrial development of Bihar, the Assocham Bihar Chamber of Commerce (BCI) and Bihar Industries Association (BIA) have decided to hold three ’investmart’ in Patna in 2011, 2013 and 2015 to facilitate investment in the industrial sector.

IT, ITeS Sector in Bihar

Patna,(BiharTimes): National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has held talks with the state government to develop a better environment for Information Technology (IT) and ITES (IT Enabled Services) firms in the state.

The member of the chairmen’s council of NASSCOM, Dr Ganesh Natarajan, called on the deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and the Information Technology secretary, Arun Kumar Singh. In Patna recently.

According to Natarajan majority of the software industry is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and the National Capital Region. So, NASSCOM is looking for second and third tier cities for the development of a concept termed as ‘IT-eco system’. It is basically a skill and infrastructure development plan for software development and financing.

He said that the software industry in India has an export market of $60 billion. But the cost of human skill development and infrastructure development for software industry in metropolitan cities has increased considerably in the past few years.

He said the availability of skilled manpower could augment the arrival of IT, ITES and engineering companies to the state. Speaking on the occasion Suvopriya Mukherjee, general manager, alliances and special projects, Global Talent Track (GTT) Private Limited, said the first step for the development of software industry at any place is the development of a pool of skilled and trained manpower. He said GTT would create an educational framework in Bihar and aspiring students would be trained on vocational skills that would help them get ready for the industry.