Introduction The geographical, cultural and socio-economic diversity of India implies that coverage of immunisation programmes and uptake varies between rural and urban areas, among different geographical regions and states. It has been seen that mother's migration is an important determinant of child immunisation uptake. This study examines the individual and community level explanatory factors associated with child immunisation differentials between migrant and non-migrant mothers groups in two states that is, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Kerala of India. These two Indian states one in South (Kerala, where immunisation coverage is about 80%) and another in North (UP- immunisation coverage is below 50%) have different socio-economic, demographic and cultural characteristics.

Methods The data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) has been used in this study. The study is limited to children born during the 59 months before the interview. Multiple logistic regression analyses have been carried out to assess the relative contribution of independent variables on immunisation status.

Results The results indicate that Individual and community level variables are strongly associated with the likelihood of receiving full immunisation among migrant groups. The likelihood of full immunisation was higher for children of urban non-migrant mothers compared to children of rural-urban migrant mothers in UP while in Kerala, the vice-versa is true.

Conclusion Even after the enormous efforts by the government to popularise childhood immunisation, the lack of awareness among the parents, especially the mothers, remained a dominant reason for not vaccinating the child.