Many Indian workers died of COVID-19 in the Gulf. Expanding insurance coverage could help their families

The Indian government has an insurance scheme for emigrants, PBBY, but it doesn’t cover deaths caused by disease and isn’t mandatory for all

Nandankari Padma, 30, is a mother of three who lives in Andhra Pradesh. Her husband, Nandarkar Bhanuchander, was a driver in Saudi Arabia. He earned around ₹19,000 a month and remitted around ₹10,000 home. Padma ran her household with that. Then, in August 2020, Bhanuchander died of COVID-19 in the U.A.E.. Padma, forced to fend for herself and her children — all under 10 — became a daily labourer. “I started to work in a nearby paddy field. We have to live,” she said. She earns around ₹200 a day but gets work for only 10-20 days a month. “I don’t know what to do. We didn’t get any compensation from the company in the Gulf my husband worked for. After he died, even his body didn’t come home,” said Padma. As of December 31, 2020, the pandemic had claimed 2,072 Indian lives on foreign soil, according to statistics from the Ministry of External Affairs, provided in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha. Of these, 1,892 died in the six Arabian Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait, which together have around 89 lakh Indians in residence. The highest death toll, of 906 people, was in Saudi Arabia, followed by 375 in the U.A.E., 369 in Kuwait, 66 in Oman, 48 in Bahrain and 34 in Qatar. And now, the WHO says both cases and deaths are on an upward trajectory in the region.