Arguing that the upcoming Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD) meet in the Capital should not be confined to alliances with businesses alone, trade union leaders and workers? organisations have asked the government to adopt and implement an international migration policy that ensures protection of those migrating out of India as well as migrants coming in. Pointing to the growing problems of migrant workers in the light of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, trade unions sought to remind the Centre that these very workers made India the world?s biggest remittance recipient in 2009.
?Most of these remittances are made, not by highly-skilled NRIs in the West, but by unskilled and semi-skilled migrants who comprise bulk of the labour migrating out of India,? said Indian National Trade Union Congress? (INTUC) Amjad Hasan
Asking the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to formulate a migration policy, which ensures re-integration of returned migrants and address the growing issue of ?detained? migrant workers, the unions also called for regulation of recruiting agents with strong punitive measures.