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The minister of state for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh on Friday, August 8, informed the Lok Sabha that 45,213 workers from Telangana were given Emigration Clearance (EC) in the past five years from 2020. In 2020, which saw the start of Covid-19 pandemic in India, 2984 workers who sought work abroad received ECs as per the e-Migrate portal data. In 2024 the figure stood at 9850, while 5642 workers left Telangana in 2025.
Kirti Vardhan was responding to a question posed by Khammam MP Ramasahayam Raghurama Reddy of the Congress party. Raghurama sought state-wise data of workers who migrated to foreign countries. He also sought information on the gender break up of workers from Telangana and the BJP-led Union government’s grievance redressal mechanism for them.
In the five-year period, 2022 saw the highest number of migrant workers moving out of the state (11,990), The numbers for Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala from 2020 to June 2025 are 71,317, 96,619, 24,700 and 77,722 respectively.
Only a few women blue collar workers in Telangana have sought jobs abroad in comparison to men. While 293 men migrated for work in 2020, the figure stood at 10,151 in 2024. In comparison, 71 women left Telangana in 2020 and as of 2024 only 187 women migrated for work from the state.
Kirti Vardhan stated that dedicated labour wings have been set up for all migrant workers in case there is a need for grievance redressal. “Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra has been set up in key locations such as New Delhi, Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, and Kuala Lumpur to provide guidance and counselling to the Indian workers,” he stated.
“As an additional safeguard for female domestic sector workers, the Union government has authorised only state-run Recruiting Agencies (RAs) to recruit Indian female workers holding ECR category passports for overseas employment in Gulf and other notified ECR Countries through the e-Migrate Portal,” he added.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar top the list of migrant workers who left the country to pursue employment elsewhere in the last five years. While 5.49 lakh left UP, 2.84 lakh moved out of Bihar to pursue employment from 2020 till now.