In the year of the pandemic, Kerala witnessed the largest-ever mass return of expats in repatriation flights wearing PPE suits, with NRKs heading home or to institutions alone to undergo mandatory quarantine.
As per latest Norka-Roots figures, of the 8
lakh persons who came home from abroad after the pandemic; 7.2 lakh were from Kerala. Malappuram topped the list with 1.3 lakh returnees followed by
Kozhikode (82,723) and Thrissur (80,698).
Migration expert S Irudaya Rajan from
Centre for Development Studies said the actual number of NRK (non-resident Keralite) returnees would be around 5 lakh, with the rest made up of students and those who had gone abroad for visits.
Norka-Roots CEO, Harikrishnan Namboothiri said close to 50% of the returnees had lost their jobs, which adds to Kerala’s challenges as it is heavily dependent on expat remittances. As per Kerala Migration Survey (2018), the expat remittances by the around 21.2 lakh NRKs was estimated at Rs 85,000 crore annually.
“The impact of pandemic on state’s migration scene is unprecedented and it will have its effects in Kerala’s financial fibre as migration acted as a protective cushion. Opportunity for migration and new migration corridors will emerge, but the challenge will be to promote quality migration. We will have to do reskilling and upskilling for that. Only skilled migration is going to work in the long run due to fast adoption of automation and ITenabled solutions,” he added.
Meanwhile, Rajan said that there is no need to worry about return migration. “Covid crisis-related return of NRKs is almost over. The high number of returnees has to do partly with the fact that Kerala did reasonably well in the initial days of the pandemic and we should think if there was a rush to return. I expect a 10% decline in remittances, much lesser than the 25% decline predicted by World Bank. Remittances will touch Rs 1,00,000 crore by March 2021,” he said.
Rajan said that migration from Kerala should pick up earlier than other states because Kerala is known for quality health worker migrants who will be in much demand and so are the emergency workers including those in food industry which has emerged as an essential sector now.
“I think migration will normalise by 2023. Some of those who returned have started going back to the Gulf. By 2023, the number of NRKs will be around 20 lakh, which is good enough,” he said.