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The minister of state for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh on Friday, August 8, informed the Lok Sabha that 45,213 workers from Telangana were given Emigration Clearance (EC) in the past five years from 2020. In 2020, which saw the start of Covid-19 pandemic in India, 2984 workers who sought work abroad received ECs as per the e-Migrate portal data. In 2024 the figure stood at 9850, while 5642 workers left Telangana in 2025.
Kirti Vardhan was responding to a question posed by Khammam MP Ramasahayam Raghurama Reddy of the Congress party. Raghurama sought state-wise data of workers who migrated to foreign countries. He also sought information on the gender break up of workers from Telangana and the BJP-led Union government’s grievance redressal mechanism for them.
In the five-year period, 2022 saw the highest number of migrant workers moving out of the state (11,990), The numbers for Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala from 2020 to June 2025 are 71,317, 96,619, 24,700 and 77,722 respectively.