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Migration and Development Seminar: Management of International Migration in India

Submitted by Sanket Mohapatra on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 08:51

 
The DEC-PREM Migration and Remittances Unit of the World Bank
Invites you to a


BBL
 "Management of International Migration in India"


Presenter: Professor Irudaya Rajan
Center for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, India


Chair: Dilip Ratha
Lead Economist and Manager, DEC-PREM Migration and Remittances Unit


April 20, 2011 12:30 – 2:00pm
Room MC 7- 100

Micro health insurance and the circle of poverty

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Tue, 04/12/2011 - 10:35

Back home in the KBK districts of Orissa, the head of the household that for decades has worked with my family, fell ill recently. He is in his early 50s. His legs have stopped functioning normally. There have been similar cases before, and some got partially cured when they were taken to a doctor in Raipur, a city some 150 miles away. The family wants to take the patient to the same doctor. But that would cost a lot. They need cash. Urgently. They are considering approaching a local money lender in exchange for a mortgage on their meager ancestral land.

Whatever happened to Nepal's diaspora bonds?

Submitted by Dilip Ratha, co-authors: Ani Silwal on Wed, 01/19/2011 - 19:14
Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo: © Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

You might recall that the finance minister of Nepal announced in the annual budget in July 2009 that the government would issue a diaspora bond to raise funds for infrastructure development. Indeed Nepal Rastra Bank followed through in June 2010 by floating a “Foreign Employment Bond”. Although the initial goal was to issue Rs. 7 billion (about $100 million), Rs. 1 billion was floated in the first round. Nepali workers in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Malaysia could buy the bond from one of seven licensed money transfer operators in denominations of Rs. 5,000 (about $65).

Data are hard to come by, but the funds raised have been minuscule, nowhere near target. Apparently, the name of the bond had nothing to do with its unsuccessful launch! 

Poverty fell in Pakistan in 2001-08 partly because of remittances - Migrants can help in reconstruction after devastating floods

Submitted by Sanket Mohapatra on Thu, 08/19/2010 - 08:35

A World Bank report released on July 30 finds that poverty in Pakistan fell by an impressive 17.3 percentage points between 2001 and 2008 (from 34.5 percent in 2001-02 to 17.2 percent in 2007-08). Three out of Pakistan’s four major provinces – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP), Punjab, and Sindh – saw significant declines in poverty during this period. The largest fall in poverty was in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). According to the Bank report “high level of remittances, both foreign and domestic, seem to have facilitated” the decline in poverty in KP.

     UN Photo/WFP/Amjad Jamal

Pakistan saw migrant remittances reach a record $ 8.9 billion in fiscal year 2010, an increase of 14 percent compared to the 2009 fiscal year despite the global economic crisis (Pakistan’s fiscal year runs from July to June). The World Bank report says “Continued strong growth in worker’s remittances in the past few years has also contributed to improvements in the external current account balance” and “have facilitated improvement in the country’s external position”. 

Almost a third of Indians, or over 300 million people, are migrants

Submitted by Sanket Mohapatra on Wed, 06/16/2010 - 20:03
  Photo © Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

India’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has just released the “Migration in India 2007-08” report (June 2010) based on the 64th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS). This nationally representative survey includes 125,578 households (79,091 households in rural areas and 46,487 households in urban areas) which together have 572,254 individuals. The report has many interesting findings on internal and international migration and remittances in India, which you can read in the press release. I have highlighted a few that I found interesting:

Almost a third of Indians, or over 300 million people, are migrants. 28.5 percent of Indians (some 325 million people, out of a population of 1.14 billion in 2008) are migrants, according to the survey. 35 percent of people in urban areas and 26 percent of people in rural areas have moved from their place of usual residence.However, migration in India is largely confined to within the same state. 72 percent of migrant households in urban areas and 78 percent in rural areas have migrated within the same state.

India received $50.6 bn in private transfers in 2009

Submitted by Sanket Mohapatra on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 17:02

The latest March 31 balance of payments data from India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), shows that India received $50.6 billion in private transfers in the 2009 calendar year.  This represents a modest decline (-1.4 percent) compared to private transfer receipts for the 2008 calendar year.

Perhaps more importantly, the data on private transfers - which comprise mostly remittances from Indian migrants - shows that remittance flows to India declined sharply in the first quarter of 2009, but then have picked up in the remaining quarters, with a clear upward trend in the fourth quarter of 2009. Whether this recovery will continue into 2010 is still an open question. Look out for our forthcoming Migration and Development Brief for some answers!      

The Economic Times erroneously reported last week that inward private transfers to India reached $55 billion in 2009. The correct figure is $50.6 billion.

 

Protecting real estate investments of Indian migrants

Submitted by Sanket Mohapatra on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 21:01
  Photo © iStockphoto.com

In the last few years, many Indian migrants (non-resident Indians or NRIs) have experienced strangers and even relatives taking over their land, tenants refusing to vacate their apartments, and sometimes being cheated by real estate developers. Complex and long judicial procedures have not helped matters. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, which has been flooded with complaints, organized a session on this issue at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, an annual meeting of NRIs in New Delhi this January (see session description and story). India’s buoyant real estate market prior to the current financial crisis appears to have contributed to this phenomenon (see story).  

The extent of these problems in the Indian state of Punjab and effective advocacy by NRI Punjabi migrant associations led Punjab’s government to designate certain police stations for NRIs in six districts, set up special revenue counts, and more recently, to create a State Commission, to speed up the resolution of their land and property disputes. Punjab’s Rent Act has been amended to make it easier for NRIs to evict tenants. India’s central government has asked states to appoint nodal officers for civil, judicial and police matters to respond to similar complaints. Although the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen, these steps are a welcome recognition of the contribution that India’s emigrants make to its economy.

Home Again

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Mon, 10/05/2009 - 17:20

   Photo © Dilip Ratha/ World Bank

I was in Sindhekela (India) last August. "Home again," as Jason DeParle put it after our last trip to Sindhekela together. It was hot and humid. There were more mosquitoes than I have ever seen. But with the monsoon came a season of festivity. For the first time in decades I was home for Ganesh Puja and Nuakhai.

Ganesh Puja offers homage to the Hindu God of wisdom, so wise that He has the head of an elephant. When I visited my school, I noticed that unlike other years, the students did not install the statue of Ganesh inside a classroom. A few days earlier, an old beam supporting the roof had come crashing down while a class was in progress. Miraculously no one was hurt - thanks to Lord Ganesh! But they did not take another chance, and installed the statue on the veranda. 

Nepal announces a diaspora bond

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Thu, 07/30/2009 - 17:33

Excerpt from the budget speech (July 13, 2009, para 139) by the Nepal finance minister for the new fiscal year beginning this month:

"An arrangement has been made to issue "Infrastructure Development Bond" of an amount of Rs. 7 billion by Nepal Rastra Bank fixing pegged exchange rates targeting the Nepalese working abroad through Nepalese Embassies in South Korea, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as a part of domestic borrowing for the coming fiscal year. Such Bonds can be purchased only from workers working abroad. From this arrangement, the remittance can be used for infrastructure development and the remittance itself remains free of additional charges while transmitting to Nepal. In addition to it, I am confident that such workers employed abroad will receive interest from the day of bond purchase and be benefitted."

India is the top recipient of remittances

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Sat, 07/25/2009 - 22:32

With Sanket

Newly available data show that remittance flows to developing countries reached $328 billion in 2008. In India, flows were stronger than expected in 2008 reaching $52 billion, up 34% compared to a year ago, and higher than our earlier estimate of $45 billion. India retains its position as the top recipient of migrant remittances among developing countries, followed by China, Mexico and the Philippines (figure 1).

Figure 1. India was the top recipient of migrant remittances among developing countries in 2008