Centre to amend law to help Indian expatriates

Panaji, Mar 29 (UNI) The Centre will soon come out with a proactive policy by suitably amending the laws to ensure transparency in immigration procedures through bilateral and multi-lateral agreements with countries like those from the Middle East, who recruit Indian labour intensively.

Inaugurating the one-day conference on ''Indian Expatriates in the Gulf Countries'' here, under the aegis of the office of the Goa NRI Affairs Commissioner, Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi said the efforts were to ensure that the Indian expatriates seeking employment were not duped by the unscrupulous recruiting agents.

The proposed amendment will also provide for ''compulsory imprisonment'' of the delinquent recruiting agents who collected huge money by luring the gullible job seekers with false promises and attractive remunerations.

He said India was planning to open its centres in Dubai and other Gulf countries soon, to facilitate expatriates.

India has already entered into Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the UAE, Kuwait and Qutar.

India is also finalising MOUs with Malaysia and Bahrain so that the wages of the Indian workers are fixed and their salaries remitted in banks directly like in the UAE besides evolving some redressal mechanism systems before recruiting Indians there, he said.

He also asked the youth to make use of the golden job opportunities in Europe, which has opened up vistas for talented country like India.

In this connection, he said, the government had recently entered into a MoU with European countries providing for job security to Indian youth so that they do not face any problems while working there.

India has the second largest migrant population in the world numbering about 25 million, followed by China. But the semi-skilled and unskilled workers besides maidservants are facing several problems abroad, he added.

Mr Ravi said Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has given thrust to resolving the problems of the Indian workers abroad so that the flow of remittances continued uninterrupted.

Earlier, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat urged the Indian diaspora, particularly non-resident Goans, not to forget their ''roots'' and help contribute to the development of Goa.

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