While UK and Belgium remain the favourite destination , the study says the irregular migrants have attempted to go to 57 countries including Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece in the past.
High unemployment rate is forcing over 20,000 youths from Punjab to migrate to other countries by using illegal channels every year and the trend has spread to neighbouring states too, according to a study by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The study notes that Delhi has emerged as an important centre for smuggling of migrants from northern India.
The irregular migration has not only spread to new areas of Punjab but also to neighbouring states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the study by KC Saha-former consultant of UNODC- that was released here today says.
Unscrupulous agents were now operating from more prosperous areas of Delhi and even from five star hotels. "It is easy to operate from big city as it helps them (agents) to maintain their anonymity and carry on activities clandestinely," the report says.
While UK and Belgium remain the favourite destination , the study says the irregular migrants have attempted to go to 57 countries including Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece in the past.
However, now countries like Africa, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are emerging as new transit countries for migration to Western Europe.
"Earlier, Russia and Ukraine used to be transit countries but now other countries like Central Asia are replacing them to move into European countries," Saha said in 'Smuggling of Migrants from India to Europe and in particular to UK: A study on Punjab and Haryana'.
Amongst its key recommendations, it sought an independent legislation to check human smuggling as police and judicial system are constrained in dealing with these cases under existing legal provisions.
It has also recommended formation of specialised counter-smuggling law enforcement units at national and state level to sternly deal with illegal migration of people to other countries.
The modus operandi of agents to "smuggle migrants" abroad has been substitution of Indian passports, photo substitution in Indian and foreign passports, use of forged visas and forged residence permits.
Saha said that forged visas of as many as 41 countries including Greece, France, Spain and UK had been used to send people abroad. The phenomenon of irregular migration is more prevalent in Punjab's several districts like Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur, it says.
"Earlier, irregular migration was restricted to a few caste groups like Jat Sikhs and Lubana Sikhs in Punjab but now it has spread to other castes which has really triggered proliferation of agents to facilitate illegal migration in the state," it says.
With illegal migration no more being a stigma among families, the social structure in a village of Punjab, which was traditionally based on landholding and caste, has now transformed to a distinction between families having members in other countries and those which do not, points out study,
"Potential irregular migrants consider other successful migrants from their neighbourhood as their role models," says Saha while adding high unemployment rate in Punjab was the major reason for illegal migration.
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