A total of 423,559 Indians returned from 14 countries between June 2020 and December 2021 revealed the Indian government in Lok Sabha.
More than half of these workers returned from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. While, during the same period, a total of 141,172 Indian nationals went to work in six West Asian countries.
The Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan told the parliament in a written reply to a question. Citing figures from the Indian government’s eMigrate system, Muraleedharan said:
“While a large number of Indian workers, particularly in the Gulf, returned to India due to Covid-19, the economic recovery in that region and their increasing openness to travel from India has now seen a return by many of them.”
He further added that according to the eMigrate portal, a total of 416,024 Emigration Clearances (ECs) were issued for Emigration Check Required (ECR) countries between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022.
Muraleedharan said that Modi government’s priority during the Covid-19 pandemic was ensuring that its impact on Indian workers was mitigated. He added:
“To that end, the [external affairs] ministry and all our missions in the Gulf were continuously engaged with the government of the Gulf nations to maintain the workers, ensure their welfare and facilitate financial payments due to them.”
The external affairs ministry, in collaboration with the civil aviation ministry, facilitated the repatriation of citizens stranded abroad during the pandemic through Vande Bharat Mission.
Earlier Minister for External Affairs Dr S. Jaishankar has said that “Vande Bharat mission where we brought back Indians from abroad in Covid crisis was daunting.”
India’s Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs & Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri too had acknowledged the importance of Vande Bharat Mission during Covid-19.
During this period, the largest number of Indians – 152,126 – returned from the UAE, followed by Saudi Arabia (118,064), Kuwait (51,206), Oman (46,003), Qatar (32,361), Bahrain (11,749), Malaysia (9,228), and Jordan (2,243). In addition, Indian workers also returned from Iraq (342), Lebanon (210), Thailand (18), Indonesia (7), and Afghanistan (1), and Sudan (1).
The largest number of Indians – 51,496 – travelled to Qatar for work, followed by Saudi Arabia (36,451), Oman (21,340), the United Arab Emirates (13,567), Kuwait (10,160), and Bahrain (8,158).