Story in Numbers: Vande Bharat Mission comes to rescue emigrants

Beginning from the first week of March, 2020, six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries locked down their borders to contain the coronavirus. As sea, land, and air borders were shut, the market came to a halt, forcing businesses to pull down shutters and send workers back to camps or to their home countries.

Scores of Indians who work there — with the largest number of people from Kerala — were forced to return home.

India established the Vande Bharat Mission to fly these workers home.  Notwithstanding many complaints — about overpriced tickets, wage theft by employers as workers left in a hurry, and had to forfeit their pending dues, etc — this was considered one of the largest repatriation exercises by any country in the recent history.

The Ministry of External Affairs told Parliament: “It was the government’s priority to ensure during the pandemic that its impact on Indian workers, in terms of loss of employment, was mitigated. To that end, the ministry and all our missions in the Gulf were continuously engaged with the governments of the Gulf nations to maintain the workers, ensure their welfare, and facilitate financial payments due to them.”

A massive outreach programme at government level was launched to ensure workers were brought home safely, and also that jobs remained secure when conditions had eased up.

Although the world is still not Covid-19-free, employment in the Gulf continues to be the mainstay for many in India.