Kolkata happens to be one of the largest metropolitan cities in India. Kolkata remained the capital of India until 1912, when the British moved the capital city to Delhi. However, it continued to be the major trade centre and the gateway to eastern India. Since independence Kolkata is the capital of the State of West Bengal. With the influx of refugees after independence from the then East Pakistan and migrants from the neighbouring states and districts, Kolkata witnessed a substantial increase of population in and around the city particularly in its peripheral areas. A group of 39 municipal towns which have encircled the city over time have actually transformed the erstwhile isolated town of Kolkata, to a large urban agglomeration. Economic as well as social factors have contributed much for the expansion of the city over a period of time and gradually transformed the surrounding rural settlements to new town areas and emergence of Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA). The city of Kolkata provides relief to a host of migrants from across the country, who have discovered a dignity in labour by catering to the needs of a bigger world that passes them by -something they never experienced, while ‘at home'. Kolkata in the recent years has grown to acquire a population of some 15 million because of the mass migration from other states and remote villages in and around West Bengal. The reasons for migration, as per the Census, have been classified into seven broad groups - work/employment, business, education, marriage, runaways, family groups, etc. Most migrants in the city work in the unorganized sector in unskilled or low-paid jobs. Even sex workers in the city are migrants from districts in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Thus Kolkata remains to be largely a migrant city with its landscape comprising a mixed and diverse flavour of cultures. |
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