It was a startling moment at a book-release function in New Delhi's India International Centre on December 20 in which Locked Homes, Empty schools: The impact of distress Seasonal migration on the rural poor was to be released by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

Speaking ahead of the release, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, who is currently engaged in a gigantic exercise of formulating and finalising India's highly-ambitious eleventh Five Year Plan, said, "It was true that distress seasonal migration was largely an unnoticed problem."

He then added, to a surprise of many, that even he got to know about "the extent of this problem" only through this book.

Professor Sen seemed amazed because he has written the foreword of the book which is a serious study about more than 30 million poor people in India who are forced to migrate every year from their villages in search of work. Along with them more than 6 million children are also forced to migrate leaving behind their schools.

After nearly 60 years of planned economy, the voice of "distressed seasonal migrants" have at last arrived in New Delhi thanks to the efforts of the American India Foundation which have been working on seasonal migration with eight organisations in India. Their efforts are part of their drive for universalisation of elementary education.

AIF helps in educating 18,000 children of migrant labours in 14 districts of India.

These children either study at the work sites or they are taken care of in their villages where seasonal hostels are managed by AIF supported organisations.

"Distress seasonal migrants are anachronism personified! These are the people who are denied upward mobility for generations. Like their grandparents their grandchildren work and live in sub-human conditions. They are at the bottom of the society," said Achyut Yagnik, secretary of Gujarat-based non-government orgnisation SETU who is active in three districts of Gujarat running 45 hostels for more than 1,500 children of migrant labourers and works with salt pan and charcoal workers.

No annual plans of government since 1951, took notice of these people.

"They were not taken into account," said B Mungekar, Planning Commission member, while speaking at the function.

He said, "Adult migrant labours lose their present but their children lose their future, also. Their problem is invisible but extremely significant."

Smita, a writer who conducted a nation-wide study for AIF, explains that the huge distress migrations are large and growing with number of affected children below 14 years of age may already be in range of 90 lakhs.

Smita conducted her exhaustive study with help of Pravin Mahajan of Janarth in Maharashtra, which works with sugarcane workers, Suchitra Seth of SETU, Vikalpa and Lok Drishti working with brick kiln migrants of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. All these NGOs are funded by AIF to educate children of seasonal migrants.

When local employment on the fields dries up because of draught, when traditional ways of earning goes because of deforestation and ecological degradation that follows, because of the new industry when traditional security of livelihood goes and when no opportunity of employment is left in villages millions of Dalits, tribals and other backward classes migrate for their very survival.

Smita claims that it is not even easy to help them because this phenomenon is complex and because of inherent instability in their lives. They move from place to place, state to state or villages to villages.

How complex this phenomenon of yearly migration was described by Ashok Alexander, chief of AIDS initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

While chairing the function he said that around 3 lakhs sex workers migrate from Karnataka to south Maharashtra every year. He said that migration of these women have major implications on the local social fabric, health and education.

Whenever poor people migrate for survival they are exploited by their employers or the industry that gives them livelihood away from home.

Smita shows in her study that the booming Indian economy is providing opportunities for top 20 per cent of the population but those at the bottom are further marginalised.

She said, "My idea of writing this book is to inform people and to take the issue to its logical conclusion."

But that's a difficult task.

Professor Sen explained, "The vast majority has no clue that this problem exists."

"Given the magnitude of the population involved this is a special problem linked with a general problem of poverty," he added.

He said poor Indians migrated due to a combination of voluntary and involuntary reasons.

The migration is involuntary because people are forced to move in absence of livelihood but there is "a voluntary element because people can move when they want to."

Sen as expected brought out the fact that the market economy obviously will not run the village hostel or schools at the site where migrants are employed. He said the market economy is here to stay and that it will not prevent the migration. He advised, "You can't rely on market economy but you can play on it."

Ahluwalia tried to show sensitivity towards such claims. He said that United Progressive Alliance government is finalising the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) whose goal is "towards faster and more inclusive growth". He candidly agreed that, "faster growth doesn't mean that all problems are over. That's just not true."

He said that government will have to pay more heed to these sectors than worry about running factories.

Some of the speakers gave useful suggestions, too.

Mungekar gave a practical suggestion of giving access to fair price shops to migrant families.

Sen forcefully emphasised the urgent need to have further land reform in India to reduce involuntary migration.

He gave the example of China and suggested that China adopted land reforms in 1980s as a result their adoption of market economy became more effective. He emphasised in the end that India should also carry forward land reforms to ease the situation in rural areas.

Shanker Venkateswaran, executive director of AIF, said Smita's book is "a story of hope."

With so much still to be done it seems it may remain just that -- a story of hope.