800,000 fewer Bangladeshi migrants in India: UN

By Arul Louis

United Nations, Dec 20 (IANS) The number of Bangladeshis living in India has come down by 800,000 since 2000 and now stands at 3.1 million, a UN report said.

In 2000, there were 3.9 million migrants from Bangladesh living in India, according to the 2017 International Migration Report released here on Monday.

It said that the number of migrants from all countries living in India now was 5.2 million, a fall of 1.22 million from 2000.

The definition of international migrants used in the report is broad and takes into account anyone living in a country different from their own and includes refugees and economic migrants, both those immigrating officially and those who do so "irregularly," said Bela Hovy, the chief of the Migration Section of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

According to data from UNDESA's Population Division made available with the report, there had been 4.375 million people from Bangladesh living in India in 1990.

There are 35,250 people from India now living in Bangladesh, an increase of 12,439 since 2000 when there were 22,811, according to the data.

The data showed that there were about 258,000 fewer people from Pakistan now living in India than in 2000. There are now 1.095 million people originating from Pakistan in India, while there had been 1.353 million in 2000.

The number of migrants from India living in Pakistan has also come down during the period by about 288,000, according to the data. There were now 1.873 million people from India living in Pakistan now while there had been 2.161 million in 2000.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)