Interstate movement of people for livelihood is an unrestricted phenomenon in India. About ten lac people per month leave behind their place of birth in search of employment opportunities and betterment of livelihood. Maharashtra being one of the vital destinations of interstate migration for the workers both the intra and interstate migration in the state have changed the rural-urban composition of its population. About 49 per cent of the state population lives in urban areas particularly in the industrial proximity. The state among others has become a migration destination for labourers from Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Apart from these, the workers from north Karnataka find their migration destination into the six border districts of the state. They are absorbed in the textile factories of Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur and bidi rolling, brick kilns, construction sites and the manufacturing industries of the border districts of the state. These workers find their permanent settlements in these towns of industrial activity and pick up the local language also. Against this background Belgaum, the district headquarter in the border Karnataka is famous for its Foundries, Crank shafts and hydraulic industries attracting mainly the local work force with no immigration either from Maharashtra or Karnataka. Main thrust of the present paper is to examine based on the primary data, the location specific composition of employment pattern of the manufacturing sector, construction and brick kilns along the border between the two states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. The paper covers five districts from Maharashtra and a Belgaum city, the district headquarter in the border area of Karnataka. For this purpose we conducted the study of 998 industrial units from six locations of the five districts of Maharashtra and together the 102 crank shaft, hydraulic and foundries from Belgaum in Karnataka. Another set of data comprises 53 brick kilns and 20 construction firms from these locations of the border areas of Maharashtra. Also to find out the place of settlement of these immigrating labourers, the respective municipal household records of 60 slum settlements from Ichalkaranji and Kolhapur industrial towns were verified along with the personal visits to these slum localities which could give us the composition of two state households. The paper is organized into eight sections with introduction in the first followed by a note on the immigration space provided in the border Maharashtra. Methodology and data is presented in the third section that is followed by a profile of the total of 1100 sample industries. Fifth section presents the results and discussion on the state and location specific employment pattern in the manufacturing sector of the selected industries from six locations of Maharashtra and the one from Karnataka. While the settlement of migrating labourers is discussed in the seventh and the unorganized sector employment of these labourers is presented in the seventh section whereas; the eighth section concludes the paper.
