ABSTRACT
South Asia has been a significant source for international migration for a long time. India, with the second largest population, dominated the flow as compared to other countries in South Asia. In this context, databases generated by the concerned government are essential to understand the stock and changing patterns in the stream of international migration. This opening chapter is dedicated to reviewing the existing government databases maintained by the countries in South Asia. In this note, we attempt to track such established databases in this region and the availability of data on this phenomenon. Indeed, the governments in this region are continually improving the quality and nature of the databases, however there is a long road ahead to develop a comprehensive country-wise database. Notably, next to China, India has the largest number of migrants, yet there exits paucity in the database to capture the flow and trends. To overcome this data shortage, I also propose the India Migration Survey model, which could also be used as a blueprint for the other countries in this region.
