Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday chaired a meeting and directed the newly formed high-level committee on demographic change to study the shift in population structure, especially in border districts, sources said.

“The home minister asked the panel to visit border areas, metro cities and industrial towns for an assessment of changes because of illegal migration and other unnatural causes,” said a ministry official.

The committee's agenda has been formulated and the home ministry will provide logistical and other necessary support for its proper functioning, the official said.

The panel is headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar, with former Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, former chief of the Bureau of Police Research and Development Balaji Srivastava and economist Dr Shamika Ravi as members. The joint secretary (Foreigners-I) of the home ministry is the member secretary.

Last month, Shah had announced the panel's constitution to examine demographic changes occurring across India from "infiltration and other unnatural causes" and suggest measures to deal with it, asserting that the issue has implications for national security, sovereignty and social stability.

The announcement came weeks after Bengal polls in which polarisation around the issue of infiltration from Bangladesh became a trump card for the BJP’s campaign as the party claimed an "alarming demographic shift" in the state.

The panel will “scientifically assess the demographic changes... analyse their causes, and recommend appropriate policy, legislative, and administrative measures", the home ministry had said in a statement.