By IANS,
Panaji : Equating the flow of migrants into Goa with Punjab, which attracts hordes of farm labourers from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, a member of the Commission on Centre-State Relations Tuesday said that migration was a “cross” which the rich states had to bear.
Speaking to reporters following the conclusion of a two-day workshop of Western region states, former home secretary and commission member Virendra Singh, however, said that issue of migration of blue collar workers into Goa was still at a “manageable stage”.
“The tensions caused by such migrations are at not such a level which cannot be handled. These are not people who hive away the better jobs. Those who come here are exceedingly poor,” Singh said.
Singh, along with other members of the commission which included former home secretary V.K. Duggal and former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Vijay Shankar, met political leaders and bureaucrats from Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat and Rajasthan as part of the commission’s brief which was to take a re-look at the relationship between the central government and the states.
He also noted that such migration only allows a spirit of Indianness to foster in the areas concerned.
Large volumes of migration from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and especially Karnataka into Goa had been the launchpad for Goa’s campaign for special status, which has found support across party ranks in the state. Parties across the political spectrum have argued that largescale migration was fast changing the demographic pattern in the state and that Goa would soon lose its unique cultural identity.