Over 87 Lakh Indian Workers Live In Gulf, 29,000 Died In Last 4 Years.

Hyderabad: Nearly 40 Indians were among the 49 foreign workers who were killed after fire broke out in a building in Kuwait on Wednesday.

Overall, Gulf is one of the strategic regions where over 87 lakh Indians reside and the highest number of outflow of Indian workers is in the United Arab Emirates, with about 35 lakh residing there. In past decade, more than 63,000 Indian migrant workers have died in the six Gulf nations of which, over 29,000 lost their lives in the last four years.

Population of Indian workers in Gulf:

According to the details submitted during Lok Sabha Question and Answer session on December 9, 2022, the total number of Indians in Gulf countries is 87,51,086. Of which, UAE alone has 35,54,274 Indians followed by Saudi Arabia, where the Indian population is 2465464. Qatar has 8,44,499 Indians while Kuwait and Oman have 9,24,687 and 6,53,500 Indians respectively. Bahrain has the lowest Indian population of 3,08,662.

It has been seen that the migration of Indian workers to the Gulf nations increased after the oil boom of the 1970s and the figure kept increasing with the economic growth there. The Gulf countries too preferred recruiting the South Asian workers due to the latter’s readiness to accept poorly remunerated low skilled jobs.

Presently, 70 per cent of the Indians work as labourers or technicians in the construction sector or as domestic servants and drivers. However, in the last one decade there has been an increasing trend of the migration of skilled and highly skilled Indians.

Issues faced by Indians:

Some of the major issues faced by Indian workers in the Gulf nations are non-payment of salaries and overtime allowance, denial of legitimate labour rights and benefits and non-renewal of residence permits. Also, there are issues over weekoffs, longer working hours as well as incidents of confinement. Many workers were left in trouble following refusal to grant exit or re-entry permits for visit to India.

Death toll of Indians in Gulf:

As far as the death toll of Indian migrant workers in accidents is concerned, 63,211 have died between 2014 to 2023. The highest casualty was recorded in 2020 when 8804 workers had died followed by 2021 that had a death toll of 7928 and 6692 in 2023. In 2022, 6159 workers had died while in 2018 and 2016, the death tolls were 6014 and 6013 respectively.

In 2015, the death toll was 5786, in 2017 it was 5604, in 2014 it was 5388 and in 2019 it was 4823.

As per data available from Lok Sabha Question and Answer session, in the last four years, the highest casualty was recorded in Saudi Arabia, where 10922 had died. The death tolls in UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar were 9509, 3919, 2498 and 1523 respectively. The lowest death toll was in Bahrain, where 1212 Indian workers had died.