Kerala’s unskilled labour sector is being catered to by at least 150,000 migrant workers from other States

Kerala’s unskilled labour sector is being catered to by at least 150,000 migrant workers from other States even as the State continues to grapple with joblessness among its uneducated youth.

Contrast this with the fact that nearly one-fourth of the Kerala population had chosen to seek their livelihood outside the State and the country.

Nearly 2.5m Keralites are employed overseas while four million occupy clerical posts and do white collar jobs in other Indian States.

Replacement migration poses several concerns for the much-vaunted Kerala model of development, characterised by high quality of human development at relatively lower income levels.

In social parlance, the phenomenon of migrants replacing the local population, already migrating to other places, is known as replacement migration. Unofficial estimates put the number of the migrant labor in Kerala at 300,000.

Good wages and better working conditions account for the large-scale replacement migration to the State. A Federal Labour Ministry study says Kerala tops in daily wages. The daily wage of a rural worker is Rs 185 while in West Bengal, it’s Rs 71 (200-01), despite the Left having a dominant presence in both States.

The booming construction market is absorbing the migrant labour. The neighbouring Tamil Nadu accounted for the largest number of migrant workers in the State touching 50,000, followed by Bihar 17,000, Orissa 15,000, West Bengal 8,459, Uttar Pradesh 4,360 and Andhra Pradesh 4,150.

Kerala’s proliferating brick-kilns are manned by Bihari labour. Labour suppliers regularly herd in workers from other States including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

Labour Minister P K Gurudasan told state Assembly yesterday that many workers were being exploited by their employers, who more often observed in breach the stipulation on maintaining live registers of the workforce, wages and other details.

Many gullible labour agencies are out to exploit by supplying cheap labour affecting the healthy wage rate of the State.

Replacement migration is a consequence of emigration and it is out to nullify some of the potentially positive spin-off effects of migration, says a study conducted by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), here.