In an interaction hosted by the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore on Monday, Census Operations Director T K Anil Kumar said migration may have acted as one of the major contributing factors for the urban district's bulging population.

Kumar said enumerating Bangalore's population had indeed been a difficult task. "To make matters worse, there isn't even an estimate on Bangalore. Even if there are any estimates, they are way off the mark. No matter how systematic the process, we have missed out on counting at least two per cent of the population,” he said.

“There are huge pockets of migrant population comprising people from states including West Bengal, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh in Bangalore, which have accounted to the population increase in the past decade," he said.

Experts also felt that migration of population from various districts including Chikamagalur, Hassan, Tumkur, Kolar, etc to Bangalore had resulted in the districts recording a declining population growth, as opposed to Bangalore's burgeoning population.

Prof Hanumantharayappa, anthropologist, who was formerly with ISEC, noted that the failure of the family planning programme in the State had resulted in the increase in population, especially in the north Karnataka districts. He also observed that irrigation programmes had contributed for increase in population in districts like Bellary, Yadgir and Bijapur.

Kumar said that the report on the urban-rural population would be released in the second week of May.