Protecting Indian Migrant Workers: Key Policies and Initiatives

Every year, lakhs of Indians board flights to Gulf countries, Southeast Asia, and other regions in search of better wages and opportunities. While remittances from these workers contribute significantly to India’s economy, the journey abroad is fraught with risks, fraudulent recruiters, contract substitution, unsafe workplaces, and even cases of exploitation or trafficking. To safeguard its citizens working overseas, the Indian government has built a multi-layered framework of policies, clearances, and welfare schemes. Understanding these protections is essential, not just for aspiring migrant workers, but for students of population studies trying to grasp how states manage international labour mobility.

The legal foundation: Emigration Act, 1983 🔗

The cornerstone of worker protection in India is the Emigration Act of 1983, which regulates the movement of skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workers travelling abroad for employment. The Act created the office of the Protector of Emigrants (PoE) under the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which acts as the gatekeeper for overseas employment. The law was specifically designed to address the vulnerability of low-wage workers who, due to limited education or first-time travel, often fall prey to unscrupulous agents and exploitative employers.

The Act applies most strictly to workers heading to 18 notified countries, mostly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, where labour protections have historically been weak. These destinations include Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, along with countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordan, Sudan, Libya, and a few others.

The emigration clearance process 🔗

At the heart of the protective system lies the emigration clearance process. This is a mandatory pre-departure check that ensures a worker’s employment offer is genuine, the recruitment channel is legitimate, and basic safety standards are in place before they board the flight.

Understanding ECR and ECNR passports 🔗

Every Indian passport carries one of two classifications: Emigration Check Required (ECR) or Emigration Check Not Required (ECNR). An ECR endorsement on a passport indicates that the holder must obtain official clearance from the Protector of Emigrants before travelling to any of the 18 notified countries for work. Workers who have not completed Class 10 typically fall under the ECR category, since they are considered more vulnerable to exploitation in foreign workplaces.

On the other hand, citizens with matriculation or higher qualifications, government employees, income taxpayers, and certain professional categories are placed under ECNR. They can travel abroad for employment without seeking clearance. Importantly, ECR status applies only to employment travel, not to tourism, business trips, or family visits.

The role of the Protector of Emigrants 🔗

The PoE’s office is the central authority that scrutinizes every application. Before issuing an emigration clearance sticker on the passport, the office reviews the employment contract, verifies the legitimacy of the foreign employer, and confirms that recruitment has been carried out through registered channels. Without this clearance sticker, immigration officials at Indian airports can stop a worker from boarding their flight.

Additional safeguards apply to particularly vulnerable groups. For instance, unskilled workers and women emigrants over the age of 30 require their employment contracts to be attested by the Indian Mission in the destination country, or they must obtain a permission letter from the embassy. This extra step exists because these categories face higher risks of exploitation, contract substitution, and unsafe working conditions.

State-run and registered recruiting agencies 🔗

To curb the menace of fly-by-night agents, India mandates that overseas recruitment can only be carried out by agencies registered with the Ministry of External Affairs. The entire process is now digitized through the eMigrate portal, where workers, recruiters, and foreign employers must all be registered. This digital trail makes it much harder for fake recruitment to slip through unnoticed.

States with large outbound migration, such as Kerala, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, also operate their own welfare bodies and state-run recruitment platforms. Kerala’s NORKA-Roots, for example, functions as a state agency that provides pre-departure orientation, recruitment assistance, and emergency repatriation support, supplementing the central framework.

Minimum referral wages: economic security abroad 🔗

Once recruitment is regulated, the next big question is wages. Many of the destination countries for Indian workers do not have national minimum wage laws of their own. According to a 2018 International Labour Organization policy brief, Qatar remained the only Gulf country with a statutory minimum wage for all workers until very recently. This vacuum left Indian migrants, especially low-skilled labourers, at the mercy of employers.

What are minimum referral wages? 🔗

To bridge this gap, the Indian government fixes Minimum Referral Wages (MRWs), the lowest monthly salary at which an Indian worker can be recruited for a particular job in a particular country. These wages are set through executive orders by the Ministry of External Affairs, in consultation with Indian missions abroad and considering the cost of living in destination countries. Unlike India’s Minimum Wages Act of 1948, which has a statutory foundation, MRWs are administrative benchmarks meant to guide foreign employers when hiring from India.

The PoE checks employment contracts against the MRW before granting emigration clearance. If a contract offers wages below the prescribed floor, clearance is denied.

The 2020 controversy and its lessons 🔗

In September 2020, citing the economic stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, the MEA issued circulars that effectively reduced minimum monthly wages for migrants to six Gulf countries by 20 to 50 per cent. The revised MRWs set wages at USD 200 per month for Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and UAE, USD 324 for Saudi Arabia, and USD 245 for Kuwait (with a lower USD 196 for domestic workers).

The government argued this would help Indian workers stay competitive against cheaper labour from Bangladesh and Pakistan. However, civil society groups, particularly the Emigrants Welfare Forum of Telangana and the Gulf Workers Joint Action Committee, strongly protested. They argued the reduction encouraged exploitation and accelerated contract substitution, a malpractice where a worker signs one contract in India and is then forced to accept worse terms upon arrival abroad. After sustained civil society pressure and public interest litigation, the government eventually revoked the circulars, restoring the earlier wage floors.

This episode illustrates both the importance of MRWs as a protective mechanism and the political contestation that surrounds them.

Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana: a safety net abroad 🔗

Even with proper recruitment and fair wages, accidents, illnesses, and tragedies can still strike migrant workers. To address this, the government runs the Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana (PBBY), a mandatory insurance scheme for all ECR passport holders going abroad for employment.

Origin and evolution 🔗

PBBY was first launched in 2003 and has since been revised multiple times, most recently in 2017. Today, the scheme is administered by the Ministry of External Affairs and is fully integrated into the eMigrate system. The policy must be purchased before departure, and emigration clearance is not granted without proof of PBBY coverage. Premiums are deliberately kept affordable, around ₹275 for a two-year policy and ₹375 for three years, so that no worker is priced out of basic protection.

What does PBBY cover? 🔗

The scheme offers a comprehensive package of benefits for emigrant workers and their families. Key coverages include:

Accidental death and permanent disability: The policy provides ₹10 lakh to the nominee or legal heir in the event of accidental death or permanent disability that leads to loss of employment. In case of death abroad, the cost of transporting the mortal remains and a one-way economy class air ticket for one attendant is also reimbursed.

Medical and hospitalisation expenses: The scheme covers up to ₹1,00,000 in medical expenses, including hospitalisation up to ₹50,000 per instance. Treatment can be claimed in India, in the country of employment, or in a third country during the policy period.

Family hospitalisation in India: Recognising that families left behind also face health risks, the policy provides hospitalisation cover of up to ₹50,000 for the worker’s spouse and two dependent children.

Maternity benefits: Women emigrants receive maternity expense coverage. The scheme provides up to ₹50,000 for caesarean operations and ₹35,000 for normal delivery per policy period, a rare feature in overseas worker insurance schemes globally.

Legal expenses: Workers also receive support of up to ₹45,000 for legal expenses related to overseas employment disputes, provided the relevant Indian Mission certifies the necessity of litigation.

Repatriation in case of medical unfitness or job loss: If a worker becomes medically unfit or loses employment prematurely, the policy covers one-way economy class airfare back to India.

Limitations of the scheme 🔗

Despite its broad coverage, PBBY has been criticized for important gaps. The biggest limitation is that compensation is largely restricted to accidental death, leaving families without support when workers die of natural causes, cardiac arrest, illness, or work-related stress, which together account for a substantial share of migrant deaths in the Gulf. Medical coverage of ₹1 lakh is also inadequate against the high healthcare costs in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Families in rural India also often struggle with the documentation and coordination required to file claims successfully.

Bringing the pieces together 🔗

India’s protective framework for migrant workers operates as a chain. Recruitment is regulated through registered agents and the eMigrate system, contracts are screened by the Protector of Emigrants under the ECR mechanism, wages are anchored to a minimum floor through MRWs, and unforeseen risks are buffered through the PBBY insurance scheme. Together, these measures attempt to convert a high-risk journey into a more secure economic transition.

Yet the system is far from perfect. Contract substitution remains common, the MRW lacks a statutory base, PBBY’s coverage is narrow, and many workers, particularly women in domestic work, slip through the cracks of formal protection. The 2020 wage reduction episode showed how protective measures can be diluted under economic pressure, and how civil society advocacy can push back. As India continues to be one of the world’s largest sources of migrant labour, with remittances exceeding USD 100 billion annually, strengthening these protections is not merely a welfare issue, it is central to the country’s development trajectory.

What do you think? Should the Minimum Referral Wages system be given a statutory backing similar to India’s domestic Minimum Wages Act, so that it cannot be diluted through executive orders? And given the rising number of migrant deaths from natural causes abroad, should the Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana be expanded beyond accidental death to cover illness and stress-related fatalities as well?

References

1. https://legalclarity.org/what-is-ecr-status-in-an-indian-passport/
2. https://www.bankbazaar.com/passport/ecr-ecnr-status.html
3. https://www.eoiriyadh.gov.in/page/faqs-on-ecr-and-non-ecr-ecnr/
4. https://services.india.gov.in/service/detail/self-registration-by-emigrants–online-purchase-of-pbby-policy
5. https://scroll.in/article/997850/how-indias-move-to-reduce-minimum-referral-wages-could-hurt-its-workers-in-the-gulf
6. https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/reduction-in-minimum-wage-may-hurt-indian-workers-in-gulf-countries-121062100094_1.html
7. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/indian-govt-revokes-directive-mandating-lower-minimum-salary-for-migrant-workers-to-the-gulf-following-civil-society-campaign/
8. https://english.sakshi.com/news/national/good-news-indian-workers-gulf-countries-139603
9. https://finlopedia.com/pravasi-bharatiya-bima-yojana-benefits-and-limits/
10. https://cgijeddah.gov.in/content-page-MzE=.html
11. https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/pravasi-bharatiya-bima-yojana/