Ministry of External Affairs boosts online mechanisms for registration of migrants

According to MEA figures, "As on December 2016, over 15,00,000 Emigration Clearances (ECs) have been granted through 10 POE offices.

Beginning its journey in May 2014, the portal has rolled out a series of schemes to strengthen its mechanism. (File)

In a bid to curb exploitation of blue-collared Indian workers including taxi drivers, maids and nurses abroad, the government has strengthened its online mechanisms for registration of migrants especially women. Under-educated or illiterate migrant workers have been known to become easy prey to exploitative employers in some of the foreign countries, and Ministry of External Affairs’ through its portal has sought to bring transparency in the recruitment process from both the sides.

One such measure, ‘eMigrate project’ is a transformational initiative of the Overseas Employment Division of MEA, to automate the current emigration processes and eco-system.

“The ministry has undertaken this transformational e-governance programme with a vision to transform emigration into a simple, transparent, orderly and humane process,” it said.

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Beginning its journey in May 2014, the portal has rolled out a series of schemes to strengthen its mechanism. In August 2016, it had taken up steps to strengthen emigration for female workers, the MEA said.

“The eMigrate system fully automates the operations of offices of Protector of Emigrants (PoE) and Protector General of Emigrants (PGoE). Also all key stakeholders in the emigration lifecycle like Indian missions, PGoE, PoE, employers, project exporter, recruiting agents, emigrants and insurance agencies are electronically linked on a common platform,” it added.

According to MEA figures, “As on December 2016, over 15,00,000 Emigration Clearances (ECs) have been granted through 10 POE offices. More than 85,000 foreign employer (FE) registrations have been completed and over 1300 recruiting agents (RAs) are active.”

United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are the top three countries where such migrants workers are employed. Also, as per recent trends, Uttar Pradesh (30 per cent) and Bihar (15 per cent) have shown an upward trend in emigration clearances. Maharashtra has the highest number of registered recruiting agents at 47 per cent, followed by Kerala (14) and Delhi (13).

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