Help visa-less Indians in UAE, MP tells government

New Delhi, Aug 23 (UNI) A senior Marxist member of Lok Sabha today urged the government to help the Indians who had to leave the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before September two for overstaying after the lapse of their visas.

Mr Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy (CPI-M) said during Zero Hour that more than 350,000 Indians had been overstaying in the UAE after the expiry of their visas.

Out of the affected NRIs, 80,000 were from Andhra Pradesh, that too from backward Telangana region.

Most of them were unskilled and semi-skilled workers who did not have sufficient earning to leave the UAE by flight at such a short notice.

Though it was originally announced that they should leave the UAE by September 30, the deadline was later preponed to September 2.

"This had further complicated the maters for the hapless Indian workers." He pointed out that many of the affected workers were doing minor jobs to the extent of eking out their livelihood.

Mr Reddy demanded that the External Affairs Ministry take immediate steps to either arrange special aircrafts to transport them back to India at free of cost or prevail upon the UAE government to extend their visas.

UNI