CHENNAI:An 18-year-old class 12 drop-out from Sivaganga district landed on foreign shores last year only to discover that the job promised by the agent back home would fetch him a paltry Rs 10,000, half of what was originally assured. Despite having to slog like a slave, the young boy, Tamizhselvan (name changed) had to put up with it to repay the Rs 1 lakh loan taken from a local money lender at 20% interest.
“Do we know how many youth from Tamil Nadu are suffering like this in foreign countries? We only want their remittances, but we know nothing about who they are, from where they go or their work conditions,” says S Irudaya Rajan, professor at Centre of Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. Along with Loyola Institute of Social Science Training and Research, Chennai, and Rajiv Gandhi Natitonal Institute of Youth Development, Sriperumbudur, Rajan and CDS have completed a pilot survey on International migration from TN, logging 9,317 households across 17 districts.
The survey says one in every 20 household in Tamil Nadu has an emigrant. Almost 44 per cent of them have passed Class 10, while 75 per cent are from the low and middle income groups. An average emigrant had to spend Rs 95,809 to leave the country, at least Rs 30,000 more than what his Kerala counterpart spends.
“We have presented the findings to the State government, and the Migrants Welfare Board has given Rs 24 lakh for completing the survey in the remaining districts. We shall cover a total of 20,000 households,” Rajan said at a press briefing here on Friday. It is estimated that the total remittance to India in 2013 was $70 billion (Rs 4.20 lakh crore), of which Tamil Nadu received Rs 59,660 crore while it was Rs 74,803 crore for Kerala.
While Sivaganga district topped with maximum number of households receiving foreign remittance (10 per cent), it was 5-10 per cent households in coastal districts like Ramanathapuram, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari.
Rajan had earlier led six rounds of the Kerala migration surveys (1998, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2014) which led to the exact enumeration of the number of Malayali emigrants (24 lakh) and their demographics.
“We identified the taluk which received the maximum remittances. In addition, we found out that the maximum emigrants from Kerala were from the Muslim community,” he said. Once the survey is completed by the end of the year, it would help prepare a similar emigrant map for TN, he added. According to him, the survey would help government agencies streamline policy on the emigration business - out of which everybody except the migrants made money.
The pilot survey shows the maximum number of emigrants from the state head to Singapore (21.40 per cent) proving wrong the perception of UAE being the preferred location. “How many direct flights are there from Chennai to Singapore currently? If majority are from coastal districts, then maybe Tamil Nadu might need another airport located nearby to facilitate them. Cheaper air-fare by tie-ups with airlines could also be worked out,” Rajan said.