Two-thirds of them are from within Karnataka

A little more than four in 10 people of Bengaluru are considered migrants, and the percentage of people categorised as migrants has shot up by nearly 12 percentage points in a decade.

This was revealed in the recently released Census 2011 data on migration into cities and States.

With 42.12% of Greater Bengaluru’s population originating from outside the district or outside the State, the urban agglomeration ranks second among comparable metros with migrant populations.

Greater Mumbai comprises nearly 50% migrants defined by Census 2011 as ‘Migrants by place’ (that is, a person who has been considered a migrant if s/he had last resided at another place other than her/his place of enumeration). The Hindu excluded intra-city migrants in the analysis.

In Census 2001 data, inter-district and inter-State migrants constituted 30.27% of the city’s population. Migrants, the data shows, are the fastest growing community in the city, growing at double the rate of the non-migrant population.

Among the larger migrant communities, Census 2011 data suggests that the largest increase in migrant inflow is from Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. There are more than 47,000 people who had migrated from out of India.

Migration within State

As Bengaluru becomes the pivotal growth engine for the State, two-thirds of migrants have come from within the State itself.

Incidentally, most of these intra-State migrants are coming from other urban centres. In Census 2001, if rural Karnataka migrants accounted for 54% of all intra-State migrants, in 2011, their share was down to 47%. This suggests that much of the employment in the State is centred around Bengaluru.

The migrant community in the city comprises over 35 lakh people. Not surprisingly, considering that migrants are defined by the census as those who had last resided in a place apart from Greater Bengaluru, a vast majority of the migrants have lived in the city for more than a decade, making them truly Bengalureans in the social parlance.

Between 2001 and 2011, over 9.33 lakh people migrated from other districts in the State to Bengaluru; while a further 8 lakh arrived from other States. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu account for nearly four lakh of these “recent migrants”, shows Census 2011 data.

There were nearly 3 lakh more male migrants than female migrants, shows the data. This skewed ratio is reflected in the answers to the question: “Why have you migrated?”

While men seem to be coming to the city in search of employment or for business (nearly 47% of male migrants), women told enumerators that they had migrated here with their spouses or relatives (55.35% of female migrants).

The positive news is the proportion of women migrating in search of employment or business has increased from 7% in 2001 to 10.85% in 2011.