Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) Over 50 percent of those ,living in Mumbai are migrants, the largest numbers coming from Uttar Pradesh, a report released by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) Friday said.
The report says that between 1991-2001, Mumbai’s population increased by 43.7 percent, all because of migration from all over India.

The 200-page ‘Human Development Report’ has analysed in detail the issues of poverty, education, health, sanitation, gender and other problems. It also confirmed that 50 percent of the city’s population lives in slums.

The report, said to be the first for any city in India, has been compiled by a steering committee headed by Ratnakar Mahajan.

The study says a whopping 24.30 percent of the migrants are from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Gujaratis, who account for 9.6 percent.

Between 1961 and 2001, the increase in Mumbai’s population was attributed largely to the influx of people from north Indian states, but migration of people from the southern states declined in the same period, the report said.

The report also noted that the migrants have contributed to the city’s economy and development on a large scale.

“They are generally employed at works where there is no need for skilled labour, for which there is a large demand, thus indirectly contributing to the city’s economy,” the report said.

“Migration is becoming major cause of concern taking into consideration the limited availability of resources to accommodate them. But there is no solution to curb the influx, at least in the near future,” it said.

The report observed that influx cannot be controlled as stopping migrants would be a violation of the provisions of the Indian Constitution.

Besides Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, the other large chunks of migrants come from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

It is worth noting that in the 1960s, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray had initiated the campaign against the so-called ‘outsiders,’ specifically targeting Gujaratis and south Indians.

Nearly five decades later, his nephew Raj Thackeray, president of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), also launched a tirade in favour of sons-of-the-soil whose jobs were allegedly being taken away due to influx of people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.