India needs to regularise immigration from Bangladesh

R Jagannathan

We must open up formal immigration channels for Bangladeshi nationals wanting to migrate for work to India. We could create yearly quotas – like the US does for H1B – though our quotas will be more basic, for we will get both the bottom end of unskilled immigrants and the top end, who can work in our infotech companies. We can be liberal with work permits, but these must be registered, and not given the right to vote in local elections — except through a long-term process of naturalisation as indicated in the Indian Citizenship Act.read less read more

Venky Vembu

The argument has been made that there may even be an acceptable level of illegal immigration from Bangladesh on the ground that they add to the cheap labour pool in India. This argument is specious on at least two counts. For one, India isn’t exactly lacking in unskilled labour force, given the vast numbers that still live in abject poverty in both rural and urban areas. If it weren’t for rural employment guarantee schemes that have driven wage price inflation, there would still be an abundance of cheap labour. And now, illegal Bangladeshi immigrants have even begun to access these schemes and health services, driving up the cost of service delivery.read less read more