Pakistan, Bangladesh snatch GCC jobs from India

by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Employment, News, Overseas

The current dismal scenario regarding jobs for Indian migrant in the GCC countries has registered sharp decline post 2014. Maeeshat assistant editor Asif Nawaz revisited the government emigrant regiment to explore reason for this slump. He prescribed and antidote for this; Scrap eMigrate regimen to restore pre-2014 job scenario in Gulf

Indo-Saudi relation has witnessed upswing during past few decades, reinforcing economic and socio-cultural ties. Post independence in 1947, New Delhi has established its full-fledged diplomatic relation with Riyadh, which was followed by many high level visits from both the sides. Recently the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi paid two-day official visit to the Kingdom, from 2 to 3 April 2016, at the invitation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The leaders of the two nations made an all round effort to catapult their mutually beneficial conventional bilateral relationship of politics, economy, security, defence, manpower and people to people exchanges into the level of ‘Strategic Partnership’.

India and Saudi Arabia have shaped their ties in such a way that both the nations enjoy a win-win type of relation, in which the possible outcomes benefit the two sides. None loses anything on benefitting the other side. Their relationship has been developed in a manner that both are dependent on each other without giving any space to either side to go unilaterally on deciding any mutual affair.

In trade and commerce, according to financial year of 2014–15, Saudi is our 4th largest trade partner today with total trade amounting to USD 26,715.56 million after China (70,717.18), United States (62,117.21) and United Arab Emirates (49,735.69); it’s the largest supplier of crude oil to India – a major source of energy as we import around 20 percent of our crude oil need.

Besides trade, investment and cultural ties, India enjoys a very special kind of relation with this petro-major. As per the MEA data, till 2015, 2.96 million plus strong Indian community are working in the Kingdom. It is considered as the largest expatriate community in the Kingdom, contributing around 30 per cent of the total expatriates of Saudi Arabia (that is around 10 million). The Indians are the most preferred community due to their expertise, discipline, law abiding and peace loving nature.

Currently, over seven million Indians live and work in the oil-rich Gulf nations. Out of them, around 40 percent are in Saudi Arabia and 30 percent in United Arab Emirates. In last 10 years, the number of Indian expats in Saudi Arabia has increased considerably; from 13,00,000 in 2004 it shoot up to 29,60,000 in 2015, making it more than two fold increase in overall Indian community in the Kingdom in just 10 years. Subsequently, the influx of remittance to India from the Saudi Arabia has also increased significantly.

The graph portrays the increase in India’s migrant workers who arrived in Saudi Arabia in last ten years.

https://emigrate.gov.in/ext/fetchECReport.action Accessed on 10/02/2017

From 2008 to 2015, every year India managed to deploy on an average around 3 lakh Indian workers in KSA, and the highest total was 3, 56,489 in 2012. This each year’s increase (from 2008 to 2015) made Indians the biggest expatriate community in the Kingdom. It is worth mentioning here that the growth rate of overseas employment in the Gulf was not confined to Saudi Arabia alone. After 2007, in all other Gulf countries India witnessed the same pace of growth in its overseas migrants’ employment. The MEA’s website for Overseas Employment Division “www.emigrate.gov.in” says that in 2007, the deployment of Indian workers in six GCC countries was 1,73,607 only, however in 2014, and 2015 it reached up to 7,75,846 and 7,58,684 respectively in the same number of GCC countries.

If we analyze the data of last five years (excluding 2016) available on the ministry’s website, we come across a very interesting fact that every year around 7.50 lakh Indian workers went to Gulf countries on employment visa. Out of them approximately 3.25 lakh arrived in Saudi Arabia alone. Here, in the chart below, we can easily observe a substantial growth in Indian workers going to Saudi Arabia in particular and into the Gulf in general.

However, In May 2015, the government of India introduced a unique computerized system called “e-Migrate” To regulate overseas employment especially for protection of less educated blue collar workers as a measure to ensure protection against possible exploitation of the Indian workers by their employers. The Indian government also claimed that this system will greatly enhance the “Ease-of-doing-business” and ensures prompt and easy action on all fronts to all the Stakeholders. By doing so, the government patted its shoulder for practically doing “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” which was promised when Prime Minister Modi and the National Democratic Alliance rode to power in May 2014.

This system has been mainly introduced to deal with the large number of complaints received from Indians working in West Asia and some other ECR (Emigration Check Required) countries. The figure of complaints in 2014, 2015 and 2016 was 17801, 16390 and 13132 respectively. This data was placed on November 17, 2016 before Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar while replying to a question on complaints reported in Indian missions by Indians in the West Asia.

We can get an idea of Complaints received by Indian Missions in Gulf Region by observing on the below table:

According to this government data, we have learnt that around 87 percent of the total complaints come from the Indian blue collar workers living in the Gulf nations. And it is also true that more than 87 percent of total Indian overseas blue collar workers, who have ECR passport, are deployed in the six Gulf nations. So, the figure of complaints from Gulf region is not extremely shocking as it is being presented in some Indian media reports, and as per my understanding, it is reasonably in a proportionate manner when we compare it with all the ECR countries in terms of the Indian migrant workers living there.

The new system which was introduced to cope with the complaints in order to enhance the betterment of Indian workers living abroad, by roping in various stockholders i.e., Indian Missions, Foreign Employers (FEs), Emigrants and Recruiting Agents (RAs) on a single platform in order to act swiftly and effectively during emergency. It requires all the foreign employers to register in the eMigrate system. This made compulsory for the entire foreign employers of Indian blue collar workers to fill in a registration application which is then vetted by the respective Indian mission. Now by using only this system, any foreign employer can raise the demand for Indian blue collar workers and seek a permit to recruit Indians in online manner either directly or through recruiting agents. The system was implemented in different phases; on 21^st May 2015 it was introduced and partially implemented and finally it was fully implemented on the first day of April 2016.

Alongside introducing this system, New Delhi also made a big decision in recent years by bringing a new guideline for Foreign Employers (FEs), urging a higher pay for millions of Indian workers in the Gulf. India, in this way, coerced the Gulf rich countries to raise the wages of its workers in a drive to earn more billions of dollars in fresh income. Complying with the government’s campaign for much higher pay, Indian diplomats in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sharply increased the minimum salaries for Indian workers at private and public firms in the region. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, the Indian embassy increased the recommended minimum salary to 1,700 riyals a month which was 1200 riyals earlier. In the UAE, the minimum wage for some category of Indian blue-collar workers rose to 1,500 dirham from 1,200 dirham. (To see all the categories of minimum referral wages please visit: https://emigrate.gov.in/ext/preMrwSearch.action). Earlier, it was anticipated that due to India’s role as a top labor supplier to the region, its drive cannot be totally ignored by foreign employers and recruiters, and if India’s efforts to secure higher pay succeed, they could boost its economy by earning more remittance, as Indian migrants send much of their salary back at home. In the last few years, India received every year around $70 billion as remittance from its workers around the world, in which the Gulf nations accounted for 52%. But at the same time, it was also predicted that there might be a backlash and India’s labor industry might also suffer heavily, which would ultimately affect India’s remittance that contributes around four percent to the GDP of India.

These two new phenomena that emerged viz a viz, India’s workforce for the Gulf region in last two to three year, have deeply affected the flow of Indian workers into the Gulf labor market, and their strength in the Gulf region dwindled significantly, especially in Saudi Arabia where it registered sharp decline in the last two years. Before going into the detail of the reasons behind this sharp decline in India’s workers going into Gulf region, let us have a look at the data available on MEA’s website for the year 2016 in comparison with last two year.

As we compare 2016 with 2015, we find in each Gulf countries a sharp decline in number of Indian workers joining the Gulf labor force except Kuwait (But in comparison with 2014, Kuwait is also in a declining status). In total, we could not send 2, 51,388 migrant workers to GCC countries in 2016 in comparison with 2015. But the surprising fact is that the highest downfall is in Saudi Arabia where this figure further registered fall to around one and half lakh in just one year! It’s unprecedented decline of Indian blue collar workers in the Gulf especially in KSA, though we had already started facing a continuous slump since 2014.

Causes of Decline in India’s Share of Gulf Migrants’ Employment

As per research, this situation developed mainly due to two factors; Minimum Referral Wages and eMigrate lengthy procedure, that were basically designed and developed for the benefit of Indian migrant workers. But they have created an unsavory situation for millions of Indian blue collar workers who are already serving in the Gulf countries and mainly for those potential Indian migrant workers who want to join the Gulf workforce.

1. Minimum Referral Wages (MRW): In recent years, the Government of India has fixed a minimum referral wages to regulate the wages of Indian migrant workers employed in different occupations (specially for carpenters, masons, drivers, fitters, nurses and domestic workers) in countries falling under the category of “emigration check required” (ECR). The ECR system is unique to India, whereby different categories of passports are made for those who have different educational qualifications. ECR passport holders need to obtain an Emigration Clearance Certificate from the Protector of Emigrants of the Ministry of External Affairs to travel for the purpose of work to one of 18 designated countries for which the ECR is required.

This minimum referral wage rate was put forward to serve as a reference to the major constituents of labor migration process i.e. the recruiting agencies, employers and potential migrants. The major rationale for putting this concept, as stated by the Ministry of External Affairs , is “to ensure that an Indian [migrant] worker is not put to a disadvantageous position by the [foreign employer] by unilaterally fixing wages, which might be much less than the prevailing wages in the host country as well as in India”. As Y S Kataria, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs at that time when this guideline was issued, told Reuters: “We want the Indian workforce to be paid higher salaries. Inflation, the value of the Indian currency and a rise in the cost of living in the Gulf were the factors that led to the decision.”

Usually it has been witnessed in different parts of the world that the operation of a referral wage has significant implications – both for migration flow and migration outcomes. In India, the implications are much more evident because a prescribed minimum referral wage is considered here a precondition for providing clearances in the context of migration of persons falling into the ECR category. In other words, migration is possible only if the employment contract of ECR persons specify monthly wages at least equal to the minimum referral wage in the relevant occupational category.

Among other origin countries that send the workers to the Gulf region, India’s referral wages are the highest as cited by International Labor Organization (ILO) in a study named ‘MINIMUM REFERRAL WAGES FOR INTERNATIONAL MIGRANT WORKERS FROM INDIA: AN ASSESSMENT’ (S K Sasikumar and Seeta Sharma, September 2016) . Therefore, from the day one, this regulation was challenged, criticized and had met bitter resistance by the recruiting agents and foreign employers in all the six destination GCC countries. Ironically, the two countries at that time had threatened to reduce their Indian workforces and hire more, lower-paid workers from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal instead. In 2014, managing director of UAE-based recruitment agency ‘Overseas Labour Supply’, Mohammed Jindran had hinted of possible fallout of this guideline and said “Of course it will encourage Gulf companies to look at Bangladesh and Pakistan as more viable destinations to get migrant workers.” Furthermore, many experts of the labor migration affairs who have been much critical of this regulation, had argued at that time, that the referral wages are fixed so high for Indian migrants, and  that’s why this step is discouraging employers in destination countries from recruiting Indian workers.

Some officials in GCC nations have also expressed displeasure because –in their views – this regulation was neither adopted by following commonly specified criteria in various Gulf countries, nor have these rates been recommended by any committee with relevant stakeholders’ participation.

After this discussion, we are now well-positioned to judge that what is the role of this hike in minimum referral wages in reducing Indian migrant workers to the Gulf region. And also we can easily guess from where these Gulf nations fulfilled their needs of employment. Obviously, it was mainly Pakistan and Bangladesh from where the Gulf countries hired workers, only because they were available on a much lower rate than India. We will discuss later how many migrant workers have Pakistan and Bangladesh sent to the Gulf nations particularly in 2015 and 2016, and we will compare it with India’s share.

2. eMigrate lengthy procedure: As we have already discussed about this system in length, we are not going into that detail. The purpose to mention it again here is to examine how and why this system has caused so much decline in India’s migrants’ employment in GCC countries. This project which was actually aimed to protect Indian laborers from frauds and to ensure minimum wages to them, has not worked in their favor, as foreign employers have switched over to hiring laborers from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Because, The Gulf-based employers are not quite tech-savvy, and they are generally known for not having much awareness about modern technology especially computers to fulfill such burdensome formalities and emigration processes.

The government’s intention to protect interests of Indian workers cannot be disputed but the bureaucratic procedures were bound to defeat the purpose. Because, the bureaucracy, while preparing this system, did not realize why a foreign employer would take so much pain and headache to hire Indian workers when it is available on less wages in other countries without any such troublesome procedure?

There are many other things that led to this fallout. One of them is that in initial stage of its launch, eMigrate online system was quite slow. It could only clear around 8000 passports per month. Whereas under the previous system named “System Automation Initiative” (SAI) the ministry was able to clear up to 40,000 passports a month. This caused much delay in clearance of passports for several months and in just few months more than 1 lakh passports had piled up at the 10 Protector of Emigrants (POEs) offices in the country, and due to this delay, thousands of visas got expired. This was a huge loss for the employers, because they spend thousands of Riyal and Dirham to obtain employment’s visa in their country. So, the delay in passport clearance, technical faults in the eMigrate system and expiration of visas annoyed the foreign employers, and finally many of them made their mind to give the India’s share of Gulf employment to some other countries.

Who got benefited?

There is a famous proverb among the Arabs “one man’s loss is another man’s gain”. It means when one person or a country loses something, another person or country gets it. It’s a natural phenomena, in other words, we can describe it as ‘someone’s defeat becomes another person’s victory’. The same thing happened in this case; India lost a large chunk of Gulf employments, and Pakistan, Bangladesh and some other countries managed to catch it.

Let’s study the case of Saudi Arabia which is facing a severe downfall in Indian migrant workers. In 2016, as mentioned earlier, it was the highest downfall of around 1.5 lakh of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia alone.

Was this decline genuine and justified one, and was it also reflected in statistical reports of other countries that send blue collar workers to the Gulf region?

In recent year, many news reports stated that due the low oil prices, political instability in the region, ISIS and Saudi’s war with Yemeni Huthis, the economy of the Gulf countries, especially Saudi economy is crumbling greatly. The politicians and rulers in the region have started talking about budget cuts and the need to curb subsidies and so on. This is the reality nobody can afford to deny. However, a question arises here, has it also affected the number of migrant workers going into the Gulf workforce in general and Saudi Arabia in particular?

The leading English-language daily newspaper from Jeddah ‘Saudi Gazette’ has published a news report on November 28, 2016. The newspaper cites in its report that according to the General Authority for Statistics (GAS), there has been a 12.17 percent increase in the number of expatriates till the third quarter survey for this year. The GAS survey further showed that the number of expatriates in the Kingdom reached 11.6 million by mid 2016. In 2015 there were only 10.2 million expats in the Kingdom.

This report clearly indicates that the inflow of migrant workers into Saudi workforce never interrupted, rather there was 12.17 percent increase in the number of expatriates joining the Saudi workforce. But from where these new migrant workers have arrived in KSA?

To solve this complex situation I searched statistical data on the net regarding the other countries that also send blue collar workers to the Gulf region. Here, I finally ended up by visiting Bangladesh and Pakistan’s websites dedicated to overseas employment’s regulation and statistics. 1) ‘Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET)’ http://www.bmet.gov.bd/BMET/index. This is Bangladesh’s website which is engaged for over all planning and implementation of the strategies for proper utilization of manpower of the country. 2) ‘Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment’ http://www.beoe.gov.pk/. This is Pakistan’s website which is engaged in collection, compilation and tabulation of emigration data of all those Pakistanis who proceed abroad for employment purpose. In addition to this, it also maintains a comprehensive statistical record of all the migrant workers since 1971, which provides basis for planning and policy formulation by the Economic Division and other interested government departments.

It was a shocker for me when I found a sharp increase in the number of migrant workers from both the countries going into Saudi workforce in the year of 2015 and 2016. The things will become clearer when we observe the following table:

Till 2014, (the year around which India introduced two new regulations for Indian migrant workers), Pakistan and Bangladesh were sending around 3 lakh and around 10 thousands workers respectively to the Saudi Arabia. But all of a sudden in 2015-16, Pakistan registered sharp rise to 5 lakh while Bangladesh witnessed increase to 60 thousand in 2015 and 1.4 lakh in 2016.

In other words, the share of Bangladesh in Saudi migrant workforce was constant around 2 percent for many past years until 2014, however in 2015 and 2016 it rose unexpectedly up to 7 and 19 percent respectively. As for Pakistan’s share is concerned, it was always less than of India’s, however, only in 2015 and 2016 Pakistan overtook India and unpredictably reached 60 percent from the previous average 45 percent per year.

See the chart below to comprehend it more precisely:

This chart and the previous table tell us that Pakistan and Bangladesh have not only eaten up our share in the last 2 years but they have also managed to fetch all new prospects of Gulf migrants’ employment. That’s why their shares have gone far ahead of us.

There is another aspect to this episode to ponder upon, first of all let us see these two pie charts and compare them:

It’s also worthwhile to mention that the biggest gainer was Bangladesh, as it was sending only 2 percent workers to Saudi Arabia till 2014. But in a period of only two years they have achieved more than ten folds increase, and deployed 21 percent workers in KSA. This is a marvelous achievement for any country in such a short period of time. As far as Pakistan is concerned, it is already having a big share in KSA workforce, however in the new emerged scenario, they (Pak and Bangladesh) also succeeded in increasing their share in KSA by approximately 25 percent of their overall share in the same period. Unfortunately, the saddest part of this story stuck with India, which was sending around 50 percent workers to KSA till 2014, but all of sudden it dipped down to merely 19 percent in 2016.

This is a massive financial loss to Indian economy; the beneficiaries remain our two neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh. So, in this way it looks like a clear surgical strike on India’s remittance that contributes 4 percent to its GDP. The Ministry of External Affairs says that according to the World Bank’s statistics, in recent years India received USD 70 billion in remittance from Indians around the world. It is the highest amount of remittance in the world received by any country, and it is almost three times the total FDI coming into the India. So, we can easily understand the value and significance of this USD 70 billion remittance in India’s economy. Out of this USD 70 billion remittance around 52 per cent came from Gulf expatriates, and among these Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia stands second with approximately 30 percent share followed by UAE with 38 percent share. If we have lost 50 percent of two recent year’s probable employments from KSA in particular, and 35 percent of two recent year’s probable employments from all Gulf nations in general alongside the steep slump in oil prices, it means we have already headed to face a heavy loss in our overall remittance in the financial years of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.

Intensity of losses

Due to this sudden decline in India’s migrant workers to Gulf region, the loss that has been inflicted on Indian workers, their families and on overall Indian economy is huge. But, unfortunately nobody from the government side has taken notice of it. Even, in recently held 14th Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas ceremony on January 9, 2017 in Bengaluru, the issue has not even been mentioned, let alone the discussion to find out the way to come out of this self-created mess.

In 2016, we were short of 2, 51,388 jobs in comparison with 2015 as for as the Gulf region is concerned. Let us assume in a hypothetical way that if these jobs were given to Indian workers, then what would be its positive impact on their life, their families and India’s economy? Obviously it would be a great and very affirmative success for them.  Or if these jobs were not given to Indian workers, then what would be its negative impact on their life, their families and India’s economy? The answer to this hypothetical question is quite discouraging and disturbing in nature. I am trying here to give its answer in an assumptive way. It is an open secret that each Indian worker manages to send back home around twenty thousand per month from the Gulf countries. Nobody can reject this figure. We know quite well that many of them send more than this amount but I have carefully chosen twenty thousand to make my point flawless and enough stronger to argue. If we multiply this amount with all the jobs that we lost last year (251388 × 20000 = 502,77,60,000), the amount would be more than 500 crore per month, and if we multiply it with 12 months (502,77,60,000 × 12 = 6033,31,20,000) the amount would be more than 6 thousand crore per annum.

From this assumption, I want to point out that this 6 thousand crore is not a small amount. It could light up more than a million of Indians’ households back in India. If the new emigration system was as user-friendly as was the previous one, India could not only retain these jobs but also could have managed to catch more new jobs in 2015 and 2016 than of 2014, I mean more than 7.50 lakh per year, because it has been reported from many authentic sources in the Gulf media that many Gulf countries raised migrants’ employment quota in 2015 and 2016, which was by and large exploited by competing labor market of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

These workers, who could not manage to go abroad, now became liability of the government of India to feed them with subsidized foods and provide them jobs at home. India is already facing huge deficit in jobs’ opportunities in the last few years. According to the fifth annual employment-unemployment survey at all-India level, about 77 per cent of the households in India were reported to be having no regular wage/salaried person.  The Indian Express, in a report on September 29, 2016, stated that in 2015-16, India’s unemployment rate is highest since 2010. This figure rings an alarm for the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, which has taken a series of steps such as ‘Make in India’ to create jobs in the country with a very fascinating slogan of “Be a job creator, not a job seeker”. But it is very agonizing to find our government reeling through dire economic straits. Moreover, it flummoxes me as to what stopped the Modi government from managing its overseas employment rules that facilitate jobs for the Indian workers in the GCC countries.

Most Affected States

One of India’s leading business newspapers, “Business Standard”, published a report on January 19, 2017, stating that under the government’s eMigrate system more blue collar workers travelled to ECR countries in 2016 from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar than any other states in India. As you can see their number in the table below:

The newspaper also quoted Protector General of Emigrants (PGE) M.C. Luther saying that shares of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in overall Indian migrant workers in ECR countries in 2016 are 30 and 15 percent respectively, leaving behind Tamil Nadu and Kerala with only 7 and 6 per cent respectively, whereas these two states (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) were traditionally considered as the main source states of such workers in the past.

This information is partially true. It is factually correct that UP and Bihar topped the list in 2016. But the two states did not go ahead of all other states for the first time, rather 2016 was the third consecutive year since 2014, when these two states were on top of the list. Furthermore, I want to make it clear here that Uttar Pradesh has been solely on top of the list of Indian states with most number of migrants to Gulf countries since 2009 till the date. Kerala topped the list only in 2008.  I am unable to understand the motive behind bringing this figure as an achievement of 2016 when it was already achieved in previous two years continuously.

As per my study, though UP and Bihar have managed to deploy the maximum number of migrants in comparision with other states in 2016, the two states also have suffered the most in terms of decline in their share of blue collar workers, and it is only because of the new eMigrate system and hike in minimum referral wages. Let’s have a look on the strength of migrants that the two states were sending in ECR countries since 2010.

https://emigrate.gov.in/ext/preViewPdfGenRptAction.action Accessed on 11/02/2017

Since 2010 onward, there was a considerable growth in the outflow of migrant workers from these two states (as shown in the chart) in particular and from all other Indian states in general (for detail visit: https://emigrate.gov.in/ext/preViewPdfGenRptAction.action). In 2010 UP and Bihar sent 1,40,501 and 60,414 respectively, which was in a period of 6 year reached 2,36,495 for UP and 1,07,285 for Bihar in 2015. But in 2016 both UP and Bihar faced a massive decline in migrant blue collar workers going to ECR countries. From 2,36,495 in 2015 Uttar Pradesh plunged to 1,43,737 in 2016 (decline of -92,758 in a year) and Bihar from 1,07,285 went down to 76,384 (decline of -30,901 in a year). If we go through the data available on MEA Overseas Employment Division’s website www.emigrate.gov.in, we will experience that the decline is epidemic in all other Indian states, but, yes Uttar Pradesh and Bihar suffered the most because they were sending previously the most. See the table below to get an idea of decline in eleven major Indian states in 2016.

The table shows that UP (-92758), Bihar (-30901), Tamil Nadu (-30475) are the three main victims of the new regulation and new system in India’s emigration procedure.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were mainly affected in the deployment of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia where both the states were enjoying a large share of migrant workforce for last couple of years. See the table below:

Out of UP’s decline of (-92,758) in 2016, -68,452 were downfall in Saudi Arabia, and out of Bihar’s decline of (-30901) in 2016, -18,951 were downfall in Saudi Arabia. The point here is that these two states were mostly affected because their share in Saudi Arabia went down unexpectedly.

These all the losses in overseas migrant blue collar workers that India faced during last two years in the Gulf nations, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Way Forward

Indeed, it is pertinent that Indian government and its institutions concerned with emigration related affairs, ponder over its outmoded policies and regulations that remain the main factors in the downfall of India’s blue collar workers in GCC countries, mainly the KSA.

Here, I would like to point out some uneasy areas which the government can think of for improving the whole emigration clearance system of blue collar workers for the Gulf workforce that boasts of potentials to boost India’s economy by providing overseas jobs in the Gulf region primarily in Saudi Arabia.

• Government should scrap the provision of employer’s registration on emigrate system and should bring back the previous procedure of emigration clearance of workers for deployment in GCC countries, that was in practice before 2015.
• On Minimum Referral Wages (MRW), I would suggest that government should give some room for negotiation to the main stakeholders to reach a common ground.

At the end, I would like to mention it again that the eMigrate system, as claimed by the government, was put in place to curb malpractices in this business and to act swiftly and effectively at the time when any complaint received by the Indian Missions. The intention of bringing such system in practice is commendable. But the redressal procedure of any complaint of migrant workers even after introduction of new system is as it was in previous one.  Then what is the purpose of bringing a new system, when its objective was being achieved by the old one?

In a reply to a question ‘whether Government has received complaints of physical and sexual abuse of migrant domestic workers in Gulf countries in the last year’ if so, the details thereof and action taken by Government’ dated December 15, 2016, the minister of state in the ministry of external affairs Gen. V. K. Singh (retd) said in RAJYA SABHA

“………..The complaints received by the Missions are dealt with on priority basis by taking up the same with the local employer, the agent in India and the local Government authorities for resolution of the complaints……….. If the emigrant is recruited through a registered Recruiting Agent, Show-cause notice is served on registered Recruiting Agent against whom complaints are received and the Recruiting Agent is directed to settle/resolve the complaint.”

According to the statement of the minister, in new eMigrate system; the Recruiting Agent is again solely responsible to settle/resolve the complaint as it was in previous system. So, if the Recruiting Agent is alone responsible of every good and bad thing to the worker, then what is the need to put a pressure of eMigrate registration on the Foreign Employer without attaching any liability and accountability with him towards the new system and Indian government? Here, my humble suggestion to the government of India is that if we sincerely want to avoid further downfall of Indian migrant workers in GCC countries, the formalities of employer’s registration on eMigrate system and uploading of demand letter, power of attorney and employment contract from employer’s side should come to an end as soon as possible, for he has already started hiring workers easily from Pakistan and Bangladesh without following any such formality. Earlier, the uploading of demand letter, the power of attorney and employment contract were carried out by the Recruiting Agent after receiving them directly from the Foreign Employer. So, that procedure should be restored without any further delay to achieve back the prestige and advantage that India was enjoying in the Gulf countries before 2014.