India’s urbanisation is one of history’s largest rural-to-urban migration stories. Every third Indian is an internal migrant, as per the 2011 Census. And this is an informal India that prefers to remain out of sight. Six years ago, at this time, it became visible, as workers fled cities and towns as the COVID-19-induced lockdown lingered. It was a brutal sentence for the workforce. Many likened the reverse migration to India’s partition in 1947, subconsciously accepting the binary narrative of “us” and “them”. By 2030, India’s urban population will be 630 million; a significant share of it will be the “migrants”. Migration from rural to urban areas will continue, both as a sustenance and distress adaptation.
This March-April, India is witnessing a slow wave of reverse migration, reminiscent of the pandemic time. It is for a reason never seen before: unavailability, or rising cost, of cooking fuel. Following the US-Israel war on Iran and the choking of the Strait of Hormuz, import-reliant India has faced petroleum-supply disruption. Its immediate impact is a shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and a steep rise in its price in informal markets. As during the lockdown, migrant workers' lives have been hit hard. Unable to afford fuel, many in industrial hubs have returned to their villages. Reports from Surat, Mumbai and Delhi suggest that a single LPG cylinder in the black market can cost up to a quarter of the average monthly income of an informal worker. Alternative cooking fuels like fuelwood, kerosene and dung cakes are either insufficiently available or have become expensive. The supply disruption has impacted industrial and service-sector operations, threatening job availability. It is an unprecedented situation in which energy-related distress has triggered reverse migration. In a sense, we are witnessing the first wave of energy migrants.
The fragile subsistence of migrant workers has come to the fore again, due to the negligent oversight to which the governance system has become accustomed. After the 2020 episode, there were strong reactions and commendable efforts not only to recognise the existence of this workforce but also to design policies to insulate them from exigencies such as the current crisis. These included making subsidised foodgrains through the Public Distribution System accessible independent of residence, extending health insurance coverage, and even supplying LPG. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) started in 2016 did not initially include urban migrant workers. But PMUY 2.0 of 2021 has a provision under which they can avail LPG connections. The Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, which steers this scheme, claims that 0.54 million migrant households received LPG connections in 2023. So, what happened this time? It seems either most people are unaware of the scheme, or the government has not publicised it, mainly the LPG provision, well.
Energy poverty and its role as a trigger for migration remains less studied. However, a few exhaustive studies have examined these linkages. A study by SA-Tied, a collaborative initiative involving local and international research institutes and the South African government, finds that rural-to-urban migration in the country has reduced energy poverty among migrants. Another study of 102 developing countries between 2000 and 2022 by researchers at the University of Artois, Arras, France, the University of Yaounde II-SOA and the University of Dschang of Cameroon, finds that energy poverty impacts international migration as well. Both studies highlight the role of access to energy and clean cooking fuels in shaping migration decisions, as we see in India. This calls for policy attention as India’s urbanisation accelerates. The disruption of the informal migrant workforce is also disruptive for the overall economy.