Over 28,500 Indian workers died in Gulf nations since 2014

New Delhi : A total of 28,523 Indian workers died in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 2014 to 2018, the government said on Wednesday.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh said that while the highest number of 12,828 Indian workers died in Saudi Arabia during the period, 7,877 such workers died in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 2,932 in Kuwait, 2,564 in Oman, 1,301 in Qatar and 1,021 in Bahrain.

The Gulf nations are home to a large expatriate Indian population and many of them are blue-collar workers in the infrastructure sector.

Singh stated that Indian missions and posts have specialised community welfare wings and labour wings in these countries with large numbers of Indian workers.

"In addition, the government has launched an online portal called MADAD for addressing the grievances of Indian nationals abroad," he said.

"The MADAD portal is regularly monitored in our missions and posts at various levels, thus giving high priority to grievances of Indian workers," he added.