Is the undocumented migrant counted?
This article explores the methodological challenges of using Census data to estimate the number of undocumented migrants in India. It discusses how coverage and measurement errors, such as migrants hiding or providing false information, complicate the accuracy of official statistics.
Can India’s official statistics detect large-scale undocumented migration? Undocumented migrants may evade law, but can they evade the Census? If millions of them are living in India, they must appear somewhere in the country’s official statistics. Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju told Parliament that “As per available inputs, there are around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants staying in India”. Then, they must come across enumerators during the Census. Millions of such people then must be meeting enumerators during the decennial censuses of India. What might an undocumented migrant do in such an encounter?
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