india

Updated: Apr 18, 2020 19:18 IST

Kerala, which is on the verge of flattening the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) curve, is bracing for yet another daunting challenge. The weakening of oil prices coupled with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the oil-dependent economies in the Persian Gulf countries have led to uncertainties, as out of 1.8 million workers from Kerala in West Asia at least 200,000 are desperate to come back home after losing their jobs.

The state government is looking at getting at these stranded expatriates back home after the ongoing nationwide lockdown, enforced initially for 21 days and since then further extended for another 19 days till May 3 to contain the spread of Covid-19 outbreak, is lifted.

The authorities are planning to repatriate the migrant workers in batches and lodging them in quarantine facilities for a mandatory 14 days. The government is working overtime to create accommodation for these Gulf returnees. Though many Covid-19 facilities have come up near four international airports in the state, more similar accommodations are required because of the anticipated bulk inflow of Gulf returnees. The state government has intensified searches for vacant flats, houses lying empty and even houseboats in the backwaters in Alappuzha that would be converted into makeshift quarantine facilities and Covid-19 hospitals.

Kerala has reported 395 Covid-19 positive cases in the state to date, of whom 50% are either Gulf returnees or their contacts, as the state government is staring at an uphill task. Around 1.8 million people from Kerala work in the Persian Gulf nations, of whom over one million alone is in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Last week, the UAE had threatened to impose restrictions on countries that refuse to take back their citizens, leading the state government to intensify its evacuation plans for the Malayalee expatriates.

“Kerala is indebted to its expatriate population for the state’s rapid development and progress. We will try our best to bring them back. We know they are going through a harrowing time. We are with them. We will screen and quarantine them upon their return,” said state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He has also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice seeking his intervention to repatriate the stranded Keralites from Persian Gulf countries.

It is a double whammy for Kerala. While the state’s working-class population sought greener pastures in the Gulf, people from north India and the north-east filled the growing migrant labourers’ void in Kerala. The petro-dollar-fuelled a real estate boom in Kerala, as at least four million interstate migrant workers found jobs in the state at one point in time. Gradually, the boom has gone bust, and the migrant workers’ strength has dipped to 2.5 million after the central government’s demonetisation drive in 2016, triggering a crash in the realty sector.

Kerala is grappling with twin issues.

“The state has to do a fine balancing act. It has to keep its interstate migrant workers in good humour and at the same time bring the expatriates back home even though the remittances will take a beating, albeit temporarily. Migration is in an average Malyalaee’s genes. If not the Gulf, they will find another happy hunting ground soon. However, the next six months will be a struggle,” said Dr Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert and a faculty member at Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies.

In 2018-19, the expatriates remitted Rs 88,000 crore, the backbone of the state’s money order economy.

“Many countries had evacuated their nationals from West Asia. Our population there is huge. But India could have at least airlifted the sick and pregnant women, who are stranded there. Some of us feel that we are living in no man’s land. We hope that our evacuation will be expedited after the lockdown restrictions are lifted,” said KC Sajith, a Bahrain-based non-resident Keralite.