Context:
- India’s Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2025, intended to replace the Emigration Act, 1983, has drawn criticism for weakening protections for Indian migrant workers, particularly low-skilled labourers migrating to Gulf countries and Southeast Asia.
- The Bill is being debated amid India’s economic rise, which contrasts sharply with the precarious realities faced by its overseas workforce.
Key Highlights:
Nature of Indian Labour Migration
- Migrant workers include construction labourers, domestic workers, sanitation staff, factory hands, largely from Kerala, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and other States.
- They remit billions of dollars annually, sustaining household incomes and contributing to India’s foreign exchange reserves.
- Migration is often distress-driven, marked by debt, deception, and lack of legal safeguards.
Provisions of the New Overseas Bill
- Replaces the Emigration Act, 1983, under the guise of simplification and efficiency.
- Shifts focus from worker protection to bureaucratic facilitation.
- Removes or dilutes safeguards introduced in 2021 rules, which had treated migrants as agents of their own fate, enabling exploitative recruiters to escape accountability.
Key Concerns and Criticism
- Weakens regulation of recruitment agents, increasing vulnerability to fraud and trafficking.
- Dilutes protections against debt bondage, contract substitution, and forced labour.
- Undermines gender-sensitive protections, disproportionately affecting women domestic workers.
- Over-centralisation:
- Weakens State-level oversight, despite States being closest to migrant realities.
- Surveillance-heavy approach risks turning migrants into subjects of monitoring rather than rights-bearing citizens.
Exploitation and Structural Risks
- Migrants face non-payment of wages, passport confiscation, poor living conditions, and limited legal recourse abroad.
- High-risk migration corridors remain under-regulated, despite known patterns of abuse.
- Digital accreditation and online systems risk excluding poor, low-literacy migrants.
Significance / Concerns
- The Bill risks normalising exploitation under the banner of mobility facilitation.
- Represents a shift from rights-based governance to control-oriented regulation.
- Undermines India’s moral and constitutional obligation towards its migrant citizens.
Relevant Prelims Points:
- Labour migration governed by Union List (Entry 81 – Inter-State migration).
- International obligations under ILO conventions, UN Convention on Migrant Workers (India not a signatory).
- Concept of debt bondage and modern slavery in migration studies.
UPSC Relevance (GS-wise):
- GS I: Migration, labour, social justice
- GS II: Governance, welfare legislation, Centre–State relations
- GS III: Globalisation, remittances, labour markets
- GS IV: Ethics, human dignity, State responsibility