15 million Indians moved to foreign countries for jobs in 2 years: Centre

New Delhi: As India witnessing a rampant decrease in employment opportunities, over 15 million Indians have moved to foreign destinations for employment in the last two years.

According to the information provided by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Lok Sabha, 70.26 lakh Indians had moved to foreign countries in 2020 on employment visas.

As per the data, the number of Indian departing on employment visas increased further to 82.48 lakh in 2021 when the country witnessed the worst-ever second wave of Covid-19.

However, the minister has informed Lok Sabha that it is estimated that there are over 13 million Indian Diaspora residing all over the world, making India as having one of the largest Diaspora populations.

In a written reply to a question asked by BJP MP Locket Chatterjee about the increase in the migration of Indian citizens over the last several years, Jaishankar said that the Ministry of External Affairs does not maintain data on Indian citizens going abroad for migration.

"Many countries do not share data, including with Indian Missions abroad, on the number of migrants of Indian origin in their respective countries, citing data privacy and other laws," the minister said.

In reply to the present status of conferring dual citizenship to these Indian citizens, the minister said that India does not permit dual citizenship.

"Section 9 of the Citizenship Act 1955 states that "any citizen of India who by naturalization, registration or otherwise, voluntarily acquires or acquired the citizenship of another country, shall upon such acquisition cease to be a citizen of India," he said.