Vayalar Ravi Announces New Measures for Welfare of Overseas Indians

Shri Vayalar Ravi, Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs inaugurated the 7th Heads of Indian Missions (HoMs) conference here today. The conference is organized by the M/o Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) every year to discuss the issues related to protection and welfare of Overseas Indian workers. In his Inaugural address, Shri Ravi said that the MOIA is considering to open a Protector of Emigrants Office (PoE) in Bengaluru. He said that Rae Bareli PoE office is also ready and Guwahati PoE office would be functional soon. He announced revised Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) scheme, which includes:

• Assistance towards boarding expenses per head by HOMs is enhanced from 15 to 30 days.

• Payment of penalties in respect of Indian nationals for illegal stay in the host country where prima facie the worker is not at fault;

• Payment of small fines/penalties for the release of Indian nationals in jail/detention centre;

• Providing support to local Overseas Indian Associations to establish Overseas Indian Community Centres in countries that have populations of Overseas Indians exceeding 1,00,000; and

• Providing support to start and run Overseas Indian Community-based student welfare centres in Countries that have more than 20,000 Indian students’ presence.

Shri Ravi called upon the HoMs to bestow special attention to Overseas Indians, particularly overseas Indian workers and address their concerns. He also asked HoMs to cooperate on the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojana which provides the overseas Indian workers a pension, a sum for return and resettlement and life insurance during the period of five years. He mentioned that the MOIA has undertaken eMigrate Project with a vision to transform emigration into a simple, transparent, orderly and humane process. The Project is an effort towards strengthening the regime of regular migration from India.

The Minister also mentioned that Government has given the voting rights to NRIs. The Government is also getting the PIO and OCI Card Scheme merged into one Scheme. He asked HOMs to suggest how to encourage NRIs to register in large numbers. He also said that the next Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD) will be held at Kochi, Kerala in January 2012 and the Regional PBD will be held at Mauritius in October this year.

On the occasion, Smt. Preneet Kaur, Minister of State, Ministry of External Affairs and Shri. Parwez Dewan, Secretary, MOIA were also present. The conference is being attended by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as well as Jordan, Yemen, Malaysia, the Maldives Angola, Thailand, Nigeria, Iraq and Libya. There are approximately 7.5 million semi-skilled and unskilled overseas Indian workers in the GCC countries and Malaysia on temporary employment/ contract visas, predominantly in the construction, healthcare and household services sectors. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) is the nodal Ministry for protection and welfare of Overseas Indian workers.