immigration from bihar

India.

India has minimum wages for farm workers that vary by state, from Rs 38 per day in Bihar to Rs 74 in Haryana, with adjustments if employers provide room and board. Actual wages are reported to range from Rs. 35 (Orissa ) to Rs 117 (Kerala) a day in 2002. Labor costs are a higher share of production costs in low-wage states-labor was reportedly 60 percent of the cost of growing paddy rice in Orissa, and 34 percent in the Punjab.

There were about 3.1 million Indians employed in the oil-exporting Gulf states in 2002, including 1.5 million in Saudi Arabia; 950,000 in the UAE (Dubai); and 300,000 in Oman. The Indian government estimates remittances at $14 billion in 2002.

Half of these migrants are from the southwestern state of Kerala--the Malappuram district has 750,000 returned migrants. However, unskilled Indians are being underbid by migrants from Bangladesh (1.8 million migrants in the Gulf), Pakistan (one million) and Sri Lanka (900,000). To upgrade skills and improve the wages of residents who want to work abroad, the Kerala state government is starting a program to try to make one person in every household computer literate.

During the peak of the Indian emigration boom in 2000, dowry prices rose sharply: one migrant married off his first daughter for 56 grams of gold and his third daughter for 136 grams. Dowry prices remain high, and family life has been changed by men living apart from their families for most of several decades.

There are about 20 million people of Indian origin abroad, including 2.2 million in the UK; 1.7 million each in the US and Malaysia; 850,000 in Canada; 700,000 in Mauritius; 500,000 in Trinidad and Tobago; 400,000 in Guyana; and 340,000 in Fiji. This diaspora has been very successful economically. There are about one billion Indians in India, but the 20 million abroad have incomes totaling $160 billion a year, a third of India's GDP. However, Indians abroad invest relatively little in India, some $0.5 billion, compared to $60 billion invested in China by 55 million overseas Chinese.

The first conference of the Indian diaspora organized by the Indian government was held in January 2003, where the government pledged to allow dual citizenship for Indians who naturalize in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Singapore. Under current law, Indians lose their Indian citizenship when they naturalize abroad. About 60 percent of Indians in America are from the state of Gujarat.