India’s evacuation of citizens from West Asia highlights a strong crisis response but underscores the need for comprehensive migration governance beyond emergencies.
- India still tends to engage with migration mainly during crises, rather than governing the entire migration cycle — recruitment, mobility, work conditions, welfare, and return.
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Gulf Region: Central to India’s Migration Economy
- Major destination for Indian migrants: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries host nearly 99.35 lakh Indians (December 2025), making the region one of the largest destinations for India’s overseas workforce.
- Key source of remittances: The Gulf accounts for about 37.9% of India’s total remittance inflows (2023–24).
- Economic vulnerability to regional instability: Any political or security instability in West Asia can directly affect Indian households, district-level economies, and state welfare systems.
Fragile and Thinly Institutionalised Migration Chains
- Weakly institutionalised migration networks: India’s internal and international migration systems rely on informal, loosely regulated networks of recruiters, contractors, and intermediaries, making them structurally fragile.
- Lessons from the COVID-19 crisis: The pandemic exposed these weaknesses when millions of migrant workers were stranded, highlighting the lack of adequate institutional support and social protection.
- Growing economic pressures on migrants: Rising living costs, LPG price increases, tightening labour conditions, and sectoral slowdowns are gradually undermining the stability of migrant workers.
- Invisible accumulation of risks: These pressures build up quietly and often remain unnoticed by policymakers, becoming visible only when major disruptions or crises occur.
Fragmented Institutional Architecture
- Multiple ministries involved: Migration governance is divided among different institutions:
- Ministry of External Affairs -emigration clearance and diplomacy,
- Ministry of Labour and Employment – labour welfare and recruitment regulation, and
- State governments– skilling and welfare schemes.
- Institution–Migration Mismatch: A migrant’s journey spans source districts, recruitment networks, international labour markets, and return migration, cutting across administrative jurisdictions.
- Partial institutional visibility: As responsibilities are fragmented, migrant workers remain visible to individual agencies but rarely to the system as a whole, weakening coordinated governance and policy response.
Data Deficit and Governance Blind Spots
- Lack of migration data: India lacks real-time, detailed data on migrant workers, limiting the government’s ability to anticipate migration trends and risks.
- Administrative gap in normal times: In routine conditions, this data deficit creates policy blind spots in planning welfare, labour protection, and migration management.
- Major challenge during crises: During disruptions, the absence of reliable data makes it difficult for governments to track migrants, assess their conditions, and manage return and rehabilitation effectively.
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Proposed Solutions and Models
- Kerala model of migration governance: Kerala has institutionalised migrant welfare through the Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department, a dedicated body with authority and staff to support overseas workers.
- Legislative framework for mobility: The proposed Overseas Mobility Facilitation and Welfare Bill aims to create a structured system for managing overseas worker mobility and ensuring their welfare.
- Anticipatory governance approach: A “whole-of-the-journey” model is proposed to track migrants from departure to employment abroad and eventual return, supported by a single institutional helpline or entry point for assistance.
Conclusion
India must shift from reactive evacuation-based responses to anticipatory, institutionally coordinated migration governance that protects workers throughout their migration journey.
17 Apr 2026
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