UMEED (Urban Migrant Enumeration for Equity through Data) is a toolkit of two products - a domestic migrant worker registration app and a dashboard. The app feeds data into a dashboard which visualizes the profile of the registered migrants residing in a city/town (urban area). During the CoViD-19 lockdown in 2020, India witnessed mass movement of citizens both within and between states and to service these migrants who took to walk back to their homes, there were no official records of the number of migrants and more importantly, vulnerable migrants. UMEED addresses the need of a digital interface and framework that helps keep a registry of migrants in urban areas. Data on migrants can help authorities provide them with public services, plan urban areas better and reduce the vulnerability faced by migrants. Team UMEED from the India Smart Cities Fellowship Program of 2020-2021 worked in tandem with the Surat Smart City and Surat Municipal Corporation to develop UMEED. The product toolkit is available for other cities and towns to adopt.
Through the application, the following is possible:
Migrants can:
a. Register themselves
b. Access amenities such as hospitals, Primary and Community Health Centers, schools and ration shops close to their location
Authorities can:
a. View registered migrants
b. Register new migrants
c. Tie-up with private partners (officially only) to register migrants
d. Dashboard can provide insight into the demographic, skilling, spatial spread of migrants in the city inter alia
Volunteers/Civil society and NGOs can:
a. Register migrants
b. Provide data of already registered migrants to the authorities with the help of mass data upload feature
‘Urban Migrant Enumeration for Equity through Data’ will address the longstanding need to register migrant workers, children and families who often go unnoticed and unenumerated in the process of public benefits provided to citizens as they are not registered in the destination state or district of migration. The registration app, if used for annual enumeration exercises, can benefit service delivery and form a reliable and updated database of migration statistics of rural-to-urban migration in India.
Development Professional
Architect and Urbanist
Architect and Planner
Economics and Policy Professional
National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)
Center for Development Studies, Trivandrum
The COVID-19 outbreak exposed internal migrant workers as the most vulnerable section of the Indian population. Despite being the foundation of our economy, the workers were the most adversely affected; losing their livelihoods, shelter, and access to food in the city, with no means of transport to return to their homes. Extensive efforts by all agencies to mobilize relief and compensation facilitated one of the largest return migrations in the country. This mass exodus highlighted the lack of adequate data or tools for the city governments to act swiftly.
Team Umeed explored internal migration from the data lens. The prime focus was on internal migrants - inter state and intra-state - and the social, economic and spatial challenges they face in the city.
The prevalent poor quality of life and lack of access to social security and other basic services, and the consequences of the pandemic highlighted the invisibility of the migrant workers. This invisibility can be attributed to the lack of primary data in the sector. After gaining a thorough understanding of the existing policies, systems and the existing scarce and scattered datasets, the team undertook the task for designing a strategy to enumerate the migrant workers through 3rd party or self registration mechanism.
The team consulted experts on internal migration, a very niche area that began being explored more only at the time of the First CoViD-19 Lockdown in India. However, a few academicians, startups, NGOs and CSOs provided great understanding of the problem areas and possible solutions to address both enumeration and accessibility issues.
There was a dichotomy between enumerating individual migrants and finding overall trends of migration. For service delivery, enumerating individuals was thought out as a more direct approach. Thus a strategy was proposed to create a closed loop system to register migrants through a mobile application with the help of NGO's and existing agencies in the space. Further, connecting the migrant to the services or schemes that they are eligible for. The data captured during the registration is analyzed and represented in the form of a migrant data dashboard which can be used for better resource planning and decision-making in the sector. A migrant cell has also been proposed to act as a single point of contact for all migrant welfare related issues or activities. This cell will also ensure the functioning of the entire system. The team used the agile project methodology to create a continuous loop of feedback from all the key stakeholders. The proposed strategy was updated as per feedback multiple times through the year.
A city selection matrix was developed to choose a city from the 100 Smart Cities for the pilot. Surat city was selected for the pilot as it has the highest resident migrant population compared to any other city in India.
Once the idea was narrowed down upon, the development commenced. Design prototypes were created. The Information Systems Department, Surat Municipal Corporation developed the toolkit on a pro bono basis. The department provided front-end, back-end, data processing and server support for the development of the application.
The development process started with the aggregation of data on migrant workers to create a sample dashboard with demographics, skill mapping, schemes and entitlements that migrants aspired to benefit from and also those that they already possessed. Local partners of the SMC assisted in this process who were already working alongside the Corporation to map migrants.
The team was deployed to develop the UMEED application and dashboard in the city of Surat in collaboration with Surat Smart City Development Ltd. The first phase of deployment between October 2020 and March 2021 witnessed more consultation upon meeting local stakeholders in the city including migrant workers and families, the National Urban Livelihood Mission ‘NULM’ department and city night shelters, the SMC officials and representatives of migrant associations.
It was decided to go ahead with the idea of registration application and a dashboard. The design and development of the dashboard, while the second stage constituted the development of the registration app and finalization of the dashboard to create an input-output framework. UMEED app and dashboard are ready to be adopted and customized upon for any authority to take up, preferably at the city level to register migrant workers.
