View: Migration, not MGNREGA, is India’s most successful anti-poverty programme

Census data shows that individuals migrating for work rose from 30 million in 2001 to 41 million in 2011. This was the very period when India’s GDP growth skyrocketed to 8% and poverty declined sharply (by 137 million during 2005-12). Assuming each individual migrant supported four more people back home, 164 million people benefited from migration.