What does it cost to remit $1 billion? 117 lives

NEW DELHI: The West Asian Gulf expat dream was long suspected of being a nightmare in disguise — latest data on the human cost of remittances from the region just confirmed those suspicions.

Human cost: 10 Indians have died daily, on an average, in the last six and half years between January 1, 2012 to about mid-2018, while for every one billion dollars in remittances from the region, 117 Indians paid the ultimate price — of their life, according to data gleaned via RTI and analysed by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

Hazard pay: 24,570 Indian expat workers died in the six-and-half-year period and the numbers could be higher as the Indian embassies in Kuwait and UAE had declined to share data — remittances from West Asia in the six-year period from 2012 to 2017 amounted to $209.07 billion, which were almost 51% of the global remittances of $410.33 billion.





Stressful life? According to a report, of the 339 deaths of Indian expats in the UAE in 2017, 65% were of those under the age of 45, largely due to heart attacks or strokes.

In other countries, such as Qatar, which is preparing for the football World Cup in 2022, the deaths could be due to the large number of fatalities at construction sites, or poor labour conditions. There are over 6.5 million Indian expats living and working in the West Asian Gulf countries.