Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 27 (IANS) An interim report by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) released Friday said Malappuram district has the highest number of emigrants from Kerala. The report also said that there seems to be no slowdown in emigration despite the global economic meltdown.
S. Irudayarajan, who led the study team, said Malappuram district has 333,550 emigrants followed by Thiruvananthapuram district at 293,358 people who live abroad.

“This interim report is based on a quick estimate from data collected from a sample of 15,000 households selected at random from 63 taluks (sub-divisions) in the state,” Irudayarajan told IANS.

The report shows that Malappuram district also has the highest number of returned emigrants with 219,426 people who have come back to India. Thiruvananthapuram district had 193,521 returned migrants.

The study was conducted to know the emigration trends in Kerala following the global economic recession.

The report says that there is no evidence of an “exodus” of people who are returning to the state from abroad, primarily the Gulf region, before December 2008. It however added that the situation might have changed since then.

The total number of emigrant population from the state was at 2.1 million, a significant increase from 1.84 million in 2003, when the study was last conducted.

The total number of people who returned home was 1.1 million in 2008, up from 890,000 in 2003, the report said.

“Return migration is part of any migration process. The larger the emigration, the more would be the return emigration. It is a built-in aspect and not an ‘exodus’,” Irudayarajan said.

Also the increase in return emigration during 2003-08 (210,000) was higher, but only marginally, than the increase in return emigration during the previous five-year period of 1998-2003 (150,000).

The study was financed by the NORKA department of the Kerala government and carried out by the Research Unit on International Migration at the CDS. The field work for data collection was undertaken by Kerala Statistical Institute.