INDIA’S WORLD : Dec 2, 2019
EMIGRATION POLICY : CHALLENGES AND WAY FORWARD.
Introduction:-
• The government has been mulling bringing changes to the emigration act, 1983.
• Due to a specific incident that fall out as:- - Around 150 Indians were deported from the US for either flouting visa rules or illegally entering the US. -In a similar incident in October, nearly 300 Indians were deported from Mexico for trying to enter the US illegally. -Close to around 10,000 Indians are deported from around the world every year. To try and address this problem the government is seeking the changes.
Insights:-
•At the root of this problem is economic not only India but all the developing countries
face this issue.
• People looking for economic opportunities, unfortunately get tempted or are lured
into such situation.
• India sends out the largest number of emigrants. We have more than 30 million NRI’s and if we add PIO’s (Persons of Indian Origin) it becomes even more.
• Now, emigrants differ according to places. For instance in Arab world or Middle East we have so many unskilled workers who are not affluent or educated enough.
• Now, difficulty arrives there because of the agents who lure people who are looking for job opportunities.
• And in many organizations, passports are taken away from the workers and laws are such that workers have to take permission of employers before leaving.
• Hence, need of the hour is to review the rules of Emigration which were last framed in 1983.
• However, as long as there is economic need the problem will exist. We can only contain the situation.
• Mostly, Indians go to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
• Approximately 8 million Indians are gainfully employed in these nations.
• And according to a survey about 95% of them face no issues. The remaining 5% face so because of not carrying proper documents with them.
• Problem also arises when some of these Indians are engaged in essential services in other countries like Water, Electricity, Military, Ports etc. They are not allowed to leave country.
• And this applies to not only Indian workers but workers from all around the world because nations wants to have control of essential services.
• Another reason of such large numbers of workers going abroad is they don’t get sufficient economic opportunities in India.
• All the students and workers abroad who are Indians are an asset to the country as they also send remittances to India.
• All these Ministries i.e; MEA, MHA, HRD will have to take coordinated efforts to improve the situations of Indians abroad. For example in US alone there are 2.6 million Indians and they remit 667 Billion Dollars to us. Also pre-departure monitoring of Indians has to be perfect to make departures less.
• And Gulf countries remits 55 billion dollars to us.
• Proposed bill talks about rating the manpower recruitment agencies who take people to other countries.
• In this regard both Central Government and State Government have to work together like Kerala. Government has standardized the agencies.
• The bill also talks about an Emigration Authority which will co-ordinate with all the stakeholders along with state government’s.
• NGOs, both foreign and domestic which are helping people abroad must also be coordinated with the above mentioned authority which the bill seeks to create.
• We must also create conducive environment for workers with ample amount of economic opportunities in India. And for the students as well so they prefer to study in India. Our Universities and Education Institutions have to be more sound.
• The gap between opportunities abroad and opportunities here in India needs to be minimized.