The urban future with cities as dynamic ecosystems

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 1- population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanisation, their problems and their remedies.

Introduction

Cities are growing rapidly and pulling people from villages, small towns, and even across national borders. Migration now shapes how cities function, who they serve, and who they exclude. Yet, many cities are still planned as if populations are fixed and socially uniform. This mismatch between lived urban realities and designed urban spaces creates exclusion, stress, and inequality. Cities must be understood as living systems, shaped by movement, diversity, and everyday human needs, not just infrastructure and technology.

What is Migration?

• Migration refers to the movement of people away from their usual place of residence to another location, either within a country or across international borders. It includes both temporary and permanent movement and is driven by employment, marriage, education, conflict, and climate stress.
  • In India, a person is counted as a migrant if their place of birth or last residence differs from their current place of living. While this method captures internal movement, it does not fully reflect migrants’ living conditions, access to services, or sense of belonging.

Status of Migration in India

1. Global scale of migration: More than 280 million people globally are migrants, accounting for 3.6% of the world’s population.
2. National scale of migration:

• Migrants constitute about 28.88% of India’s population, or nearly 40.2 crore people.
• Rural-to-rural migration dominates (55%), while rural-to-urban and urban-to-urban migration together account for about 35%.

3. Urban growth and future trends: By 2030, over 40% of India’s population is expected to live in urban areas. This growth will be driven largely by migration, making cities central to India’s economic and social future.
4. Economic contribution of migrants: Migrant workers contribute 0.5–2.5% of GSDP in states such as Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. Cities rely heavily on migrant labour, skills, and tax contributions for daily functioning.
5. Rising climate-induced displacement: India is the fourth worst-hit country globally for disaster-related displacement. Around 41 million people were displaced due to weather events between 2020 and 2021, increasing pressure on urban centres.

What are the major problems faced by migrants?

1. Linguistic exclusion: Language becomes a compulsory marker of belonging. Migrants who do not speak the dominant urban language face daily exclusion and reduced acceptance in public life.
2. Invisible economic burden: Limited language access makes jobs, housing contracts, healthcare, and government services difficult to navigate, creating hidden costs that reduce income and stability.
3. Push into informal work: Cultural and linguistic barriers force many migrants into informal employment, marked by low wages, weak protection, and high exploitation.
4. Unequal access to urban services: Despite cities depending on migrant labour and taxes, migrants face barriers in welfare, healthcare, and public facilities, creating structural inequality.
5. Planning that ignores migrants: Urban infrastructure is designed for settled residents, rendering migrants invisible in city planning, even as migration fuels urban growth.
6. Weak representation in governance: Planning bodies rarely reflect urban diversity, leading to misaligned schools, transport systems, and public spaces.
7. Erosion of social belonging: Exclusion undermines migrants’ dignity, safety, and trust, deepening divisions between long-term residents and newcomers.

What are the government initiative taken to overcome the problem of migrant?

1. Digital & Social Security Integration

• e-Shram Portal (One-Stop Solution): This national database for unorganized workers now serves as a “One-Stop Solution”, integrating 14 central social security schemes. Registered migrants can access and track benefits for schemes like PM-SYM (pension), Ayushman Bharat (healthcare), and PMAY (housing) through a single Universal Account Number (UAN).
• One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC): Fully operational across all 36 States and UTs (as of 2025). It strengthens food security by allowing migrants to access subsidized food grains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS)in India using their existing ration card and Aadhaar authentication.
• Ayushman Bharat Portability: Migrant workers covered under PM-JAY can receive up to ₹5 lakh free annual health coverage at any empanelled hospital nationwide, regardless of their home state.

2. Legislative & Policy Reforms

• New Labour Codes (2025): The implementation of four labour codes (notably the Social Security Code and OSH Code) as of November 21, 2025, has introduced statutory rights such as minimum wages, mandatory appointment letters, and portable social security for inter-state migrants.
• Shram Shakti Niti 2025: A unified digital labour-governance framework designed to connect workers with opportunities and welfare services closer to their communities through District Labour and Employment Resource Centres (DLERCs).
• Overseas Mobility Bill 2025: For international migrants, this proposed bill aims to establish an Overseas Mobility and Welfare Council to provide a regulatory framework for the protection and welfare of workers abroad.
• All India Survey on Migrant Workers: The Labour Bureau has conducted an All India Survey on Migrant Workers to capture their socio-economic characteristics.

3. Employment & Housing

• Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC): Under PMAY-Urban, this scheme provides low-cost rental housing for migrants in cities, improving living conditions near work sites.
• PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana (2025): Focused on jobs created between August 2025 and July 2027, this scheme provides financial incentives of up to ₹15,000 for newly employed youth and supports formalizationthrough EPFO registration.
• Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan: Launched on 20 June 2020, it aimed to support returning migrants through rural works and infrastructure saturation.

4. State-Level Best Practices

• West Bengal: The Shramashree Scheme (2025) supports returning migrants with a ₹5,000 one-time grant, monthly financial aid, and immediate enrollment in state health and education programs.
• Jharkhand: The Safe and Responsible Migration Initiative (SRMI) focuses on systemic registration and helpdesks to track and support migrants at both source and destination districts.

What should be done?

1. Rethink cities as living systems: Cities should be treated as dynamic ecosystems, not fixed structures. Urban planning must accept constant movement and changing populations as normal, not as an exception.
2. Anticipate cultural and linguistic friction: City systems should prepare for diversity in everyday life instead of responding only after problems arise. Measures like multilingual communication and simpler navigation of services can reduce daily barriers.
3. Invest in cultural sensitisation: Training public-facing staff to engage with diverse populations is not only about politeness; it improves service delivery, operational efficiency, dignity, and democratic access.
4. Make governance more inclusive: Planning bodies must reflect the real diversity of the city. When migrant perspectives are included, planning for schools, transport, parks, and housing becomes more realistic and effective.
5. Accept short-term adjustment for long-term gain: Inclusive reforms can create temporary disruption or commotion, but this is often necessary to reach a fairer, stronger, and more adaptable city outcome.
6. Strengthen frontline and mobile service delivery: Frontline health and social workers should actively reach migrants who are excluded from services and schemes. Preventive health care like vaccinations should be ensured, and mobile facilities should cover brick kilns, construction sites, and other hard-to-reach work locations.
7. Include migrants in schemes and enable ID access: Government departments, alone or with civil society, should involve migrants in the design and implementation of benefit schemes. At the same time, systems must ensure migrants can secure the identification documents needed to access those benefits in cities.

Conclusion

Cities succeed only when they serve all who live in them. Migration is not a problem but a defining reality of urban life. When migrants are excluded, cities weaken their own economic strength, social trust, and resilience. Urban planning must move beyond infrastructure and technology to focus on people, belonging, and everyday lived experience. Empathy, inclusion, and recognition of diversity are not optional ideals but the true measures of a successful and sustainable urban future.

Question for practice:

Examine how migration shapes urban life in India and discuss the challenges faced by migrants and the measures needed to make cities more inclusive.

Source: The Hindu