Migration Governance And The Whole-Of-Journey Approach

Crisis Response And the Real Governance Issue

• Evacuation Capacity: The return of over 4.75 lakh citizens from West Asia shows India’s logistical ability and diplomatic reach.
• Main Concern: The article asks whether India will continue to deal with migration only during emergencies or across the full cycle of mobility, work, welfare, and return.

Importance of the Gulf for India

• Major Migration Region: The Gulf is a major region for Indian migration, household welfare, and labour-market dependence.
• Scale of Presence: The six GCC countries had nearly 99.35 lakh Indians in December 2025.
• Remittance Importance: The region contributed 37.9 per cent of India’s remittance inflows in 2023–24.
• Domestic Impact: Instability in the Gulf quickly affects Indian households, districts, and state welfare systems.

Weakness In The Migration System

• Fragile Mobility Chains: India’s internal and external migration systems are connected but weakly institutionalised.
• Covid Lesson: This weakness was seen during Covid when millions of internal migrants were suddenly immobilised.
• Current Stress Signs: Rising living costs, higher LPG prices, tighter movement conditions, and sectoral slowdowns are again reducing worker stability.
• Hidden Distress: Workers may still continue to move, work, and send remittances even when their conditions are becoming more insecure.

Limits of the Present Governance Structure

• Useful but Late Response: Diplomatic engagement, consular coordination, and repatriation are important, but they mostly become visible only after disruption begins.
• Neglected Questions: By the time return flights are arranged, important issues such as recruitment conditions, support at destination, and return preparedness have already been neglected.
• Fragmented Responsibility: The MEA handles emigration clearances and diplomacy, the Labour Ministry handles recruitment and worker welfare, and states run skilling programmes and welfare funds.
• Journey–System Mismatch: A migrant’s real journey cuts across districts, recruitment networks, states, and countries, but the system does not track it as one whole process.

Data and Visibility Gap

• Partial Visibility: Migrants are visible to different parts of the system at different stages, but rarely to the whole system.
• Data Weakness: India lacks detailed and dynamic migration data needed for early policy response.
• Welfare Risk: In normal times this is an administrative gap, but in crisis it becomes a welfare problem.

Uneven Capacity Across States

• Kerala Example: Kerala shows how sustained investment in migration data and institutions can improve governance.
• Uneven State Preparedness: Similar capacity cannot be assumed across all major migrant-sending states.
• Return Burden: Migrants return to district administrations, local labour markets, and households whose capacity to absorb shocks is uneven.

Need for a Whole-of-Journey Approach

• Bill Opportunity: The pending Overseas Mobility Facilitation and Welfare Bill can help embed welfare into migration governance.
• Connected Mobility System: Migration from Jharkhand to Surat and from Jharkhand to Riyadh should be seen as part of the same broader system.
• Policy Need: Migration governance must provide steady protection, better coordination, and easier access to support.
• Required Shift: India must move from a crisis-based approach to a continuous system of visibility, coordination, welfare, and return across all forms of mobility.