"For Mumbai, the migration has largely been from Ratnagiri and Raigad, and is linked to the breakdown of the rural economy." Scarcely one-tenth of the migrants to urban conglomerations in Maharashtra were from the north, Prasad added.
"Politicians don%u2019t really know what migration means and they certainly don%u2019t understand it," said D P Singh of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences%u2019 Centre for Research Methodology. A study conducted by Prof Singh, based on the 2001 census data, showed that of the seven districts of the country contributing the most migrants to Mumbai over 1991-2001, five were districts in Maharashtra, with Ratnagiri leading the pack. Satara, Raigad, Sindhudurg and Kolhapur placed from third to sixth.
While the number of migrants to Mumbai from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar did increase (from 12% of the migrant population to 20% in 1991 and 25% in 2001), Maharashtra was still the biggest source of migrants, with Maharashtrians comprising 37% or almost two million of the city%u2019s migrant population in 2001. In contrast, fewer people from Karnataka, Kerala and Rajasthan are coming to Mumbai than before. The number of Gujaratis coming to the city has halved over the last 50 years.
While employment followed by education are the major reasons for the migration of entire households, for individuals, the chief reasons are marriage followed by migration of parents or the earning member of the family. An analysis of the use that the families of
